


Desire, I'm hungry

by Apuzzlingprince



Series: IT Fanfics [5]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Anal, Everyone is a little in love with Bill, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Horror, M/M, Non-Human Genitalia, Oral, Psychological Trauma, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-06 10:29:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12209418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apuzzlingprince/pseuds/Apuzzlingprince
Summary: There were other ways one could feast, and the writer would be here, soon… here in Derry, after all these years… and It would find him, and It would possess every inch of him until the writer knew nothing else but It and the extent of Its desire.Bill returns to Derry. It's the longest week of his life.





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another future fic! Just a few things to note:
> 
> \- There will be some book spoilers, most notably in regards to who survives Chapter 2 of IT.  
> \- This fic takes places in 2016. The Losers' careers will reflect this.  
> \- All the Losers are in their thirties.  
> \- The pairings in this fic are primarily Pennywise/Bill and Richie/Bill. There's also Beverly/Bill, but I don't intend to take that anywhere.  
> \- There will be sexual content between Pennywise and Bill, and while Bill enjoys himself, and will probably reciprocate at some point, it still starts off non-consensual. If that's not your jam, I strongly suggest not reading this fic!!!

_Baby, I'll learn to touch you_  
_I wanna breathe into your well_  
_See, I gotta hunt you_  
_I gotta bring you to my hell_

 _-_ Meg Myers - Desire

* * *

_They were coming to It again, to Its personal feeding grounds. Six instead of seven, this time; one had taken their life upon being called, and It had revelled in feeling the bird-child’s life peter out like the flame at the end of a wick. Six was easier to deal with that seven. It lacked the mystic power of seven, a power the children hadn’t been aware of, but had nonetheless harnessed in their battle with It. If It had its way, there would be even less than that during their next confrontation. It could easily arrange to have a few of them picked off._

_Favour was in Its odds. It would not lose this time. The remaining six were aged and dull and weak; they no longer believed in the things that had enabled them to leave It huddled pathetically in a puddle of Its own strange blood as children. Their minds were numbed by reality. They no longer believed that guns could shoot without bullets and the bogeyman could be dissuaded by something as juvenile as the ‘power of friendship’. They came to It with blunted spirits and It knew they knew their encounter would not be as it was in their youth. It could feel their collective doubt._

_It paid careful mind to the writer, however. The writer had been the leader, the instigator. Without him to unite his friends, It would have hunted each of the ‘Losers’ down and stripped the muscle and fat off of their bones. It never would have felt pain, and it never would have felt fear. The writer had introduced It to both of those things and It loathed him for it._

_But loathing was not all It held for the writer. Loathing was not far from obsession, and obsession was not far from desire, and It'd had twenty seven years to dwell on Its loathing for the writer. At some point, It had found Itself wanting for more than just the writers death. This yearning was nothing something It had experienced in some millennia. In fact, It could not clearly remember the last time It had desired anything beyond food. And why would It have? Here, on earth, the only sapient creatures were humans, and they were little more to It than a convenient source of sustenance. They were too stupid, too primitive, to be anything else. It had no interest in mating with the alien equivalent of ants._

_Until now, that was. Because the writer, as vexing as he may have been, smelt good, and looked good, and would likely feel good, too, and It wanted to fill itself up on more than just the writers soft quivering meat. There were other ways one could feast, and the writer would be here, soon… here in Derry, after all these years… and It would find him, and It would possess every inch of him until the writer knew nothing else but It and the extent of Its desire._

* * *

Derry had changed dramatically over the two decades Bill had been absent. As he dragged his luggage through the busy main street, sweaty and fatigued from his flight, he was greeted by a vast array of towering buildings and a curious assortment of niche shops. There was a bank on almost every street corner. A little excessive, if you asked Bill. How many banks did one town need?

The Derry he remembered had been a small country town with a population in the low thousands. It’d had a significant, but nonetheless modest yearly growth, and it had not been the sort of town Bill had thought worth investing big money in. In fact, that had been part of the reason he and his family had eventually moved. His parents had wanted better education and employment opportunities for both themselves and their remaining son. Bill recalled that he had angrily protested moving away from Derry, and consequently his only friends, but they had ended up moving away regardless. He’d been bitter about that throughout high school and college, but he might have been less so had he remembered the monstrous being that lurked in the sewers of Derry.

He had moved out of home the moment he’d been old enough to do so, taking up residence in a college dorm room. He hadn’t been sure about what he wanted to do as a career at the point of his life, but he’d known his strengths lay in art and writing. He’d also known the phrase ‘starving artist' didn’t exist for nothing.  _Very_  few artists or writers ever made it big, and Bill had taken on a variety of different class for fear of spending his entire life scraping by on pennies. Incredibly, he had managed to publish his first story within months of entering college (he'd received two hundred dollars for it!), and went on to publish several longer stories as his college education progressed. Before he‘d even hit twenty five, he had been a renowned author with several best sellers, and his luck hadn’t stopped there: he’d since worked on movie scripts, written for TV shows, and featured in several educational publications, and he’d even had some of his artwork purchased by a local gallery. He was prosperous enough that he’d been able to move to England on a permanent basis and fly back to America periodically for work and familial obligation. 

He’d lived a long, happy life, and he had every intention of beating the beast that resided in the sewers of Derry and living an even longer, happier life, one he would incorporate the Losers into. He didn’t have many friends to speak of, as reclusive as he was, but with the Losers here, he expected that to change. It would be nice to have more than work colleagues to spend time with.

He pulled his luggage over a filthy gutter and onto the sidewalk, peering up at the hotel he and his friends would be using as an assembly point. As he’d come from England, it was likely he was the last to arrive. They were probably all inside, waiting for him.

A nervous energy hummed in Bill’s bones. He coiled his hand right around the handle of his luggage, white knuckles on display as he advanced on the entrance. It was only as he got closer that he realised a man with heavily lined features and salt and pepper hair was sitting out front.

Was… was that, Mike? Somehow, he felt it, knew it was Mike. He looked far older than he had any right to. No one in their thirties should have greying hair, thought Bill sadly.

“Mike Hanlon?” he greeted tentatively.

Mike smiled at him, all teeth, and looked immediately younger. “And you must be Bill. Big Bill. You certainly fit the name, now.”

“I wish,” said Bill with a snort, releasing his luggage to approach Mike. “I’m only five foot ten. Sometimes I can’t reach shit on high shelves.”

Mike laughed. "Still, a touch taller than me. You look well."

"Really?" He swiped a hand thought his hair, attempting to flatten it. "I thought I'd look like hell after my flight. I was seated behind someone who snored like a freight train."

"Well, there's a little of that too." Mike moved forward. “It’s good to see you, Bill.”

“You too,” said Bill, and when Mike went to extend his hand, Bill evaded it and pulled Mike into his chest, wrapping his arms tight around him. Mike returned the hold and stroked soothing circles into Bill's back while Bill breathed unsteadily into his shoulder.

He was glad Mike couldn’t see the moisture rimming his eyes.

“I missed you,” said Mike quietly, and Bill had to stifle a sniff in the folds of Mike’s jacket. “I thought about you guys almost every day for the past two decades.”

“Wish I could say the same,” said Bill with a wet laugh. He withdrew and ducked his head, reaching back to recover his luggage.  “I didn’t remember anything after leaving Derry. Didn’t even think about my childhood.” He paused, casting Mike a worried glance. “Was… was that the same for everyone else, or was I the only one who couldn’t remember?”

“No, you weren’t the only one,” Mike assured him. “No one remembered but me.”

“Wow.” Bill swiped his knuckles over his damp eyes and followed Mike into the hotel. “Can’t say I’m not a l-little relieved. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the only one who didn’t remember my best friends.”

“Best friends, huh?” he heard someone. He raised his gaze to a man standing at the reception counter, and Bill immediately identified them as Richie Tozier. No one else in their group would dare be caught wearing a gaudy Hawaiian shirt.

“Not with you,” said Bill, scoffing. “Not unless you change that shirt.”

“You wound me, Bill,” said Richie with mock offense. He snatched Bill’s luggage out of his hands and guided him over to the counter. “I’ll help you with these. Mike, go sit down with the others. You’ve been busting your ass all day.”

“Thanks, Richie.” After a departing wave, Mike lumbered off into the attached restaurant. If he squinted, Bill could see a sizeable group of people sitting the in far corner, talking quietly among themselves. One, two, three… Mike had just joined them… Richie was here with him, and Bill knew Stan wouldn’t be coming. He wouldn't be seeing Stan ever again.

Stan… god, just thinking about him made Bill's throat seize up. He’d known upon receiving the call that Stan wouldn’t take the news well. Out of all of them, Stan had been the most psychologically impacted by their encounter with It. Had Bill been called first, rather than last, he might have been able to fly out to Stan, to speak him down from suicide… but it was too late now; Stan’s funeral was to be that weekend. The coroner would release him on Saturday.

“This here is Bill Denbrough,” he heard Richie say, drawing his attention back to the counter. A plump woman sat behind the desk, her painted fingernails roving over a keyboard. She didn’t look up when she spoke.

“Identification.”

Bill extracted his drivers license from his pocket and handed it over. When he got it back, it was accompanied by a bulky key card on a chain.

“Don’t lose that,” she told him, nodding at the strip of plastic in his hand. “It’s a fifty-dollar fine if you do.”

Fifty dollars was a pittance to Bill. He had well over a million in his bank account. He nodded. “Have a nice day, ma’am.”

“You too,” she replied, and Richie took this as his cue to heave Bill’s luggage off the carpet and toss it into a nearby elevator. Bill’s room was only on the second floor, and Bill could have easily carried his luggage up the stairs, but he stepped inside after Richie regardless.

“You feeling alright?” asked Richie, looking him up and down. “You’re looking a lil’ pale.”

“Just t-tired from the flight,” he replied, offering a weak smile. He never did get used to the nine hour red eye flights, no matter how often he took them.

“Yeah, I hear you’re here all the way from merry ol’ England,” said Richie, affecting an English accent. Bill laughed.

“I have a house out in the country. Used to be my holiday home, but I decided to stay living there after doing a script for a Doctor Who episode.”

“A Doctor Who episode?” squawked Richie in awe, still speaking as an Englishman. “Bloody hell, you’re doing better than I thought!”

“I’m not the only one,” said Billy shyly. “I hear you host your own show. I think I’ve even watched it a few times.”

“Still, a  _Doctor Who_ episode. Incredible. I hope it was the one with the angels.”

Bill snorted. “I wish.”

The elevator doors parted and they stepped out into a quiet hallway. A few people in holiday-appropriate attire were standing by their doors, some preparing to go in and some preparing to go out. This hotel seemed reasonably busy. That was probably why Mike had chosen it, to surround them with enough people to dissuade It from approach them in public.

When they arrived at Bill's room, it was much larger and much more lavish than Bill had anticipated. It had cream walls with a couple of paintings hanging up, red carpet, an attached bathroom, and to his great surprise, it had three rooms instead of the traditional two. The third room doubled as a kitchen and lounge room. They'd even provided a mini-fridge, and when he pulled open the door, he found an assortment of overpriced candy on the shelves. Though they would be eating room, that didn't dissuade Bill from ripping open a packet of malteasers. He was hungry from his lengthy flight and whatever he ordered in the restaurant would take at least twenty minutes to arrive, if not longer. 

Richie heaved his luggage onto his bed.

“Eating already? Geeze, Bill.” Richie extended his hand expectantly. “Gimme some.”

Bill poured a generous amount into Richie’s hand, careful not to spill any. “That's your compensation for helping me.”

“Cheapskate,” said Richie, popping one into his mouth. "Thanks, chief."

Bill hadn’t the patience to eat them one by one, so he shoved as many into his mouth as could be fit, which turned out to be almost half the packet. Richie broke into boisterous laughter upon seeing his bulging cheeks.

They finished the chocolate together and discarded the packaging, then proceeded back downstairs to join the other Losers in the restaurant.

A man that could be none other than Eddie almost leapt out of his chair upon seeing him. He had short, neatly combed brown hair and a surprisingly youthful, if tired face. Bill half expected to see a fanny pack hanging off his thin hips, but he looked down, and the only thing wrapped around his waist was a leather belt. “Bill!”

“Hey, Eddie,” Bill greeted warmly. He took a seat by the man, giving one of his shoulders a squeeze. He still looked to be a rather delicate man.

Richie sat on Bill’s opposite side.

Across from him, Ben and Beverly smiled at him in greeting. They were sitting side by side, shoulders brushing, and Bill couldn’t watch their close proximity for long without a twisting sensation in his gut prompting him to look elsewhere.

Mike reached across the table to hand him a dinner menu. After they had placed their orders, they chatted idly, and Bill found himself falling into the same easy rapport he’d shared with the Losers as a child. It might as well have been one day rather than twenty seven years since they’d last seen each other.

“I got commissioned to build a prison recently,” Ben was saying, forming the vague outline of a building with his fingers. They were thin fingers. He’d lost a considerable amount of weight over the past two decades. “It’s one of the biggest, most heavily fortified in America. It starts taking in prisoners in a fortnight.”

“Wow,” Beverly gasped, and Bill got that odd feeling in his gut again.

“The payout from that one enabled me to buy a helicopter. Usually I would travel via jet, but a helicopter – those can land just about anywhere. Far more convenient.”

“Seriously?” Richie banged a fist on the table. “You’d better give us a ride before we leave Derry!”

“I could give you a ride  _out_  of Derry if you live close enough.”

"I'd love to r-ride in a helicopter," said Bill wistfully. Though he was quite wealthy, Bill didn’t own any kind of aircraft. He didn't do enough domestic travelling to justify such a purchase.

Their drinks were delivered to their table, and Bill immediately swallowed a mouthful of his lemon, lime and bitters. He hadn't had anything to drink in a few hours. Eddie and Beverely had gone with non-alcoholic options, while everyone else at the table either had wine or a whiskey on the rocks.

They discussed their jobs, their family, their friends, and just prior to their meals arriving, Richie told them a riveting story about the time he had met President Obama. Bill dug right into his chicken schnitzel, cutting off a sizeable chunk and shoving it into his mouth mid-sentence.

“Still a little peckish, Big Bill?” asked Richie, laughing.

He nodded sheepishly, chewing and swallowing. The only thing he’d eaten on the flight was a ham and cheese toastie, which, absurdly, had cost him eight pounds. 

Shortly after they had begun dinner, complimentary soup arrived. Bill hadn’t even known complimentary soup was a thing restaurants did. He’d certainly never received any until now. He didn’t particularly like tomato soup, and really, the weather wasn’t ideal for any kind of soup, but he dipped his spoon in and lifted it to his mouth regardless.

Eddie slapped the spoon out of his hand before it could pass his lips. “Don’t eat it!” he cried, reaching across the table to yank Mike’s spoon out of his hand and make a swipe at Beverly’s. “Don’t eat it! There’s something in the bowl!”

A chill shot down Bill’s spine. He wiped away the flecks of soup on his mouth with a sleeve.

“There’s something in the bowl,” Eddie said again, and everyone watch in disgust as he fished a fresh eyeball with optic nerve still attached out of his bowl. It swivelled around his spoon, bright blue iris looking at each of them in turn.

Bill had to swallow down bile. He turned to see Richie fishing rotten teeth out of his own, and Beverly extracting bloody bits of hair – public hair? – from hers. Ben let out a little whimper as he removed a bloody toe and bits of fat from his. Mike hadn't touch his own soup, though there was something thick and meaty bobbing at its surface.

Fingers trembling, Bill returned his spoon to his soup and felt around until he struck something large and heavy at the bottom. He pulled it up the side of the bowl, depositing it on a napkin. Everyone turned their heads to view the small, beating organ sitting before Bill.

It had given him a heart.

* * *

They retired to their rooms after dinner, their appetites thoroughly extinguished. Even Bill, hungry as he was, hadn’t managed to swallow more than two more bites of his meal before nausea overpowered his ability to eat. He’d pushed his meal away, practically untouched, and filled his empty stomach with lemon, lime and bitters instead. They were better than nothing.

Eddie followed him to his room and they lay down together in his bed, watching pay-per-view episodes of Richie’s talk show. It was easy to see why he was so successful. He had all the charm and allure of Ellen DeGeneres and the various personalities he adopted were hysterical. Bill would have to go to one of his shows when they were done in Derry.

“So… a heart.” Eddie hitched himself higher up the bedrest, glancing at Bill. “You didn’t let that soup touch your mouth, did you?”

“Only a little bit,” he said.

“Do you want some sanitise napkins?” Eddie was already reaching into his back pocket. “I have some left over from my flight. I always keep a few on hand.”

Bill saw no point in trying to refuse, so he remained still while Eddie unfolded a napkin and wiped his mouth clean with it.

“Better?”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “Thanks for w-warning me. Can’t believe I almost ate heart soup.”

“At least it wasn’t eye soup,” said Eddie, scrunching up the used napkin and shoving it into his back pocket.

“True. I’m pretty sure in some cultures the heart is considered a delicacy.”

“Don’t tell me that. You’ll make me gag.”

“Right, r-right, sorry,” said Bill, grinning in that wide, dopey way he often had as a child. He’d been quite an exuberant little boy prior to Georgie’s death.

His smile must have been infectious, because Eddie immediately returned it.

"I wasn't in the mood for soup, anyway," said Eddie. "Who eats soup during summer?"

"I know," said Bill, laughing. "That should have been our first clue something was amiss."

A new episode of Richie’s show started and Bill rose from the bed to retrieve a handful of snacks from the mini-fridge. Their appetites would return, given enough time, and Bill wanted to be prepared.

“Hope you don’t mind me asking, Bill,” began Eddie. Bill, still elbow-deep in the mini-fridge, glanced over his shoulder. “You didn’t mention having a family during dinner. Are you married?”

Bill rose and shut the mini-fridge with the toe of his shoe. Snacks gathered in his arms, he returned to Eddie’s side and deposited his food on the bedside table.

“You don’t have to answer,” said Eddie quickly. “I was just curious.”

“No, no, it’s alright," said Bill, resuming his languid sprawl across the mattress. “Do you know who Audra Philips is?” he asked. He hadn’t thought of Audra Philips in some time. She was painful a memory, if he was honest, and he was still very much enamoured with her despite their mutual parting six years ago.

Eddie’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you talking about the actor?”

“Yeah, that’s the o-one. She was my wife.”

“Was?”

“Yeah,” he said dourly. “Was.”

Eddie winced in sympathy.

“You don’t have to continue,” said Eddie, his voice quiet. “I let my curiosity get the best of me. I apologise.”

“It’s alright. Really. I don’t mind answering.” Bill plucked a candy bar off the bedside table and tore away the packaging. He was suddenly in dire need of chocolate. “We ended things amicably.” He took a bite out of the bar – Snickers. Not his favourite, but it was still delicious. “Actually, I was the one who chose to end it.”

“I suppose you don’t need my sympathies, then.”

“Oh, no,” said Bill, extending his hands. “Give me the sympathies. I welcome them.”

Eddie reached over and squeezed his fingers. “My sympathies.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” And the hand withdrew.

Bill took another bite of his snickers bar. “The ridiculous thing is, I ended things because she wasn’t Beverly. She looked like Beverly – the hair’s a-almost exactly the same, and her personality isn't that far off, but I didn’t e-even remember who Beverly  _was_  when I fell in love with Audra, or when I left her.” He shook his head. “Pa-p-pathetic, right?” Bill secured his teeth over his tongue, grimacing. He hadn’t stuttered this badly in  _years_. It was making him self-conscious to have all his therapy annulled by his presence in Derry.

Eddie didn’t seem to notice nor care, however. “Well…” He rubbed at his forearm, clearly anxious. “You didn’t marry your mother, so you’re already doing better than me.”

Bill arched an eyebrow. “I thought incest was illegal.”

Eddie elbowed him in the side, which he fully deserved. “Don’t be a dick. That’s Richie’s role. You know what I meant.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Bill finished off his Snickers bar and reached for another. His appetite was steadily starting to return, and it was ravenous. “Guess we’re a-all still just a bunch of losers, huh? Some things never change.”

“It’s not so bad,” said Eddie, smiling, and then he reached across Bill to select his own chocolate bar.


	2. Day 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings for this chapter, though It does briefly harass Bill and Richie. Feedback is, of course, very much appreciated!

The Losers’ first night in Derry passed without incident. Despite this, they were a union of bagged eyes as they entered the restaurant for breakfast the following morning. The only one that had yet to arrive was Richie, who had told them to save him a plate of bacon and eggs so he could catch a few hours of sleep before noon. Bill wasn’t sure he would get them. Once alone in the dark with naught but the company of your own mind, you thought of terrible, frightening things, and the Losers were in the unique position of having quite a few very real terrible, frightening things to think of.

They exchanged few words while they ate. Jetlagged as he was, Bill barely offered a word of conversation, forking freshly cooked eggs, beans and bacon into his mouth with completely listlessness. Much of his night had been spent alternating between tossing his weight around his bed and getting up the raid the minifridge. By morning, he’d emptied it of everything but a can of cherry cola.

Once he had finished what was on his plate, he didn’t go back for seconds. A rare event for him.

“Bill, you look dead on your feet,” said Beverly, and he tried to sit up a little straighter. His back creaked in protest.

“I’m j-just tired from the flight,” he said, stifling a yawn with his palm. “A red eye was the only flight available, so I ended up waking at two and booking in at four, and the whole process took about… I ‘unno, sixteen hours? Seventeen? Then there was the drive here, of course.” He scratched the side of his neck. “Guess I am a little dead on my feet.”

“You should grab some sleep,” said Ben. “Like Richie is.”

“Y’sure?” he asked, glancing at the occupants of the table. The only one that appeared to have slept through the night was Mike. “You guys are tired, too.”

“Not as tired as you,” said Beverly.

Eddie piqued up next. “They’re right, Bill. You look awful. You need to get some sleep.”

Bill thought it good fortune that he hadn’t yet had his morning coffee. That would have kept him awake regardless of how fatigued he was.

“Yeah, alright,” he mumbled, stretching as he vacated his chair. He would have liked to join them in a nostalgic stroll through town, but he was simply too tired to protest going to bed any more than he already had. He wouldn’t have enjoyed it in his current state, anyway. “Try not to have too much fun without me,” he told them as he dragged his feet in the direction of the elevator. He couldn’t be bothered walking up all those stairs.

His room was lovely and warm when he returned. If there was one thing he missed about living in America, it was the warm summers. Summers in England were tepid, at best, and while he didn’t mind tepid summers, he did enjoy the cosy warmth offered by places with a warmer climate.

Bill parted the window curtains before he got into bed. If he wasn’t in the dark, his fears couldn’t plague him, right? A juvenile way of thinking, but Bill was tired enough to humour it.

He tucked his knees close to his chest and shut his eyes, burying his face into his pillow. For a while, he drifted on the fringes of unconsciousness, grasping for slumber, and didn’t quite manage to reach that rejuvenating state of REM sleep. Thinking about how badly he wanted rest only made it harder to pass into unconsciousness.

The sound of the fan turning on caught Bill’s attention. He peeled open his eyes to look up at the ceiling and saw that it was spinning at a moderate speed, lashing his skin with cool air. The faint hiss it gave off soothed Bill. He pulled his quilt a little higher up his body and resumed drifting, and this time he managed to make the transition into proper slumber.

He didn’t feel the hand that stroked through his hair, nor the lips against his jaw. He didn’t feel the chill of air as something spoke to him in his sleep. When he awoke some hours later, he did, however, have the odd sensation of having been watched.

Bill perched himself on the edge of his bed and rubbed at the large, white goosebumps on his forearms, staring with growing trepidation at his open bathroom. Had it been open when he’d gone to sleep? He couldn’t remember…

The sound of knocking at his door propelled him out of his thoughts.

“Just a minute,” he yelled, jumping out of bed to grope around the floor for his trousers. He yanked them on and was still in the process of buttoning them up as he opened the door.

Richie grinned at him, all teeth and gums. “Finally, an answer! Everyone else seems to be out.”

“Everyone else is doing a n-n-nostalgia trail walk,” he said, extending a hand to invite Richie inside. “Did you manage to get any sleep?” he asked, sitting on the edge of his bed to pull on his socks and shoes. It was such a lovely warm day, and he expected Richie would want to go out to enjoy it.

“A little,” answered Richie. “Had some strange dreams when I did, though. It’s kind of weird… I don’t think I ever even remembered my dreams before now.”

Bill tugged on his plain white socks as he spoke. “Same here. Apparently I regularly had nightmares, though. I’d wake up crying and I never knew why.”

“You aren’t the only one.” Richie tossed a shoe over to Bill, which he caught and slid on. “Though I don’t think I ever woke up crying. I just had a sense of foreboding after waking.” He chuckled. “Always chalked it up to stage fright.”

Bill guffawed. “Stage fright? The great Richie Tozier gets stage fright?”

“I know I’m amazing, but even _I_ get a little anxious about standing up before an audience of millions sometimes.”

“I know the feeling.” He’d done speeches and attended conventions before. It always made him anxious to know that anything he said – mistakes and all – would be uploaded to youtube. “There’s a clip on the internet of me accidentally saying ‘dick’ instead of ‘done’. I think it became a meme on one of those social media sites the kids like.”

“Holy shit, seriously?” Richie cackled with laughter. “Oh God, I’ve gotta look that up later.”

“Thank you for your sympathy, Tozier,” said Billy wryly.

Once dressed, the two of them exited his room to head downstairs. He was starving now he’d recovered some energy. The breakfast buffet was long since closed when they arrived, so they both ordered something off the lunch menu and took a seat. They barely said a word to each other while they ate, both ravenously hungry.

Richie was first to finish, flopping back in his chair with a contented sigh. “So,” he said to Bill, who was still shovelling chips into his mouth. He was trying to eat them all before they got cold. No one liked cold chips. “Where’d you want to go after this? Around town? The barrens?”

Bill swallowed what he had in his mouth before he replied. “You have any idea where the others might be?”

“I think they were going to check out the places they saw Pennywise at as kids.” Richie shrugged. “Not much point in me doing that since I saw It at the Neibolt house.”

“And I saw It at _my_ house.” Bill selected another chip, chewing on the end. “Think they’d let us in to have a gander around?”

“Gander? Who the hell uses the word _gander_ in casual conversation?” Richie rolled his eyes. “Probably not. I mean, there’s a psyche killer going around killing people, remember?”

Bill licked salt from his fingers, pushing his plate away. He’d eaten all but three chips and a ring of onion. “We could try Neibolt house, if you think it’d help you remember some stuff.”

“On our own? Are you _insane_?”

“A little,” he admitted. “I mean…” Bill busied his fingers by wiping them on a nearby napkin. “We’d o-only go if you wanted to. I’m not going to force you to go.”

“No, I _don’t_ want to go,” replied Richie. “We could get killed, Bill. _You_ could get killed.” His tone turned uncharacteristically sombre. “I know what that thing did to you was worse than anything it did to any of us, but you can’t- you can’t just go rushing ahead this time.” He paused, swallowing and licking his lips. “What happened is still coming to me in bits and pieces, but I do remember that you separated from us, and what if It’d had the time to make a plan around that? You would’ve been _fucked_ without us, Bill. It would have slaughtered you.”

Bill opened his mouth, and then closed it, looking guiltily down at his plate. He picked idly at the inedible remnants of his steak.

“Bill…” He felt warm fingers on his knuckles. “I care about you a lot, okay, man? We were always close as kids, and it – it fucking terrifies me that your hero complex could end up getting you killed.”

“S-sorry,” said Bill, his voice barely above a whisper. He faintly recalled running off on his own. A glimpse of Georgie was all that It had needed to draw Bill away from the safety of his friends. And Richie was right; if It had been given more time to plan, Bill chasing It into the depths of the sewer could have ended in his death. If he separated from them this time, it was entirely possible it _would_ end in his death.

Richie patted his cheek with greasy fingers. “Don’t worry about it. Just keep close, alright? I don’t want you out of my sight when we kill that fucker.”

“I will,” he promised, and he hoped he meant it.

A waitress provided their bill moments later. Richie insisted on paying, though Bill had more than enough money to spare on a meal.

Instead of venturing into Neibolt house, he and Richie descended into the Barrens, pushing their way through thick clusters of shrubbery to find the spot they had favoured as children. The assembly of rocks was barely visible through the thick weeds and grass, and Bill had to pull up a significant amount before he could take a seat on the topmost one. Richie joined him shortly after, their knees jostling together.

They could see the stream from where they sat, sorrowfully thin beneath the glare of the sun. It smelt strongly of greenery, and something else, something hard to pinpoint among the intermingling scent of discarded trash. Not exactly pleasant, but it was a warm, sunny day with a mild breeze, and Bill was comfortable enough that he didn’t care enough to escape the scent.

Richie’s head came to rest on his shoulder. He coiled an arm around his waist, pulling him closer. His hair smelt faintly of mint. He must’ve used the complimentary shampoo provided by the hotel. Bill had yet to shower, and he belatedly realized he must have smelt absolutely awful. If that was the case, though, Richie gave no indication of it.

He idly stroked Richie’s back. He was much broader and taller than Bill had guessed he would be. His hair lay in thick curls upon his head and he had a hint of hair on his chin and above his lip. It suited him, made him look handsome. If he looked Richie up on youtube, he wondered how many teenage girls would be claiming to be in love with him. Probably a lot.

Out of all the Losers, he had always felt Richie knew him the best. There was hero worship on Eddie’s part, admiration from Stan and Mike and Ben, love from Beverly – but Richie was the one who had seen him at his worst, who had brushed away his tears and promised not to tell. Richie knew who he was when the brave façade fell. He’d seen him as not a hero, but a boy – and perhaps that was why they had fought so violently over whether to confront It again, because Richie had known Bill didn’t care if he died, and that had frightened him.

He cared if he died now. He’d cultivated a comfortable life in Its absence, and he didn’t particularly want to give it up. But if he died as a consequence of ridding the world of It, that was an acceptable sacrifice. Bill didn’t want to die, but he would if he had to.

He wouldn’t mention that to Richie. The way Richie had spoken to him earlier indicated he would do something rash if he thought Bill was prepared to die to win.

“Remember when we used to go to the c-cinema as kids?”

He lightly brushed his fingers through Richie’s thick brown hair. Whoever did his haircut had done a wonderful job of preventing matting.

“Yeah,” Richie murmured. “You dragged me to Beetlejuice. Still never understood why you liked that movie so much.”

“It was fu-f-funny.”

“It was creepy.”

That, Bill couldn’t deny. He’d taken down his poster after their encounter with It, finding the titular character too reminiscent of the clown.

BANG!

He and Richie jumped so violently that they ended up falling off their rock. The remnants of a balloon floated down from the sky and landed at their feet. Bill’s heart raced as he stood, inadvertently sending Riche sprawling into a nearby patch of weeds.

When he turned to look around, he caught a glimpse of orange retreating into the thicket surrounding the stream.

“Its here!” he cried, gesturing wildly at the trees. “Its fucking here!”

Richie climbed his way to his feet and squinted at the trees. “Where?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Bill, grabbing Richie by his elbow and pulling him in the opposite direction. They had to find the other Losers. “We need to get out of here before it decides to pursue.”

The grass and weeds whipped at their legs as they bolted up the hill. At the top, there was road and cars, shops and people. It wouldn’t follow them up there. Bill was sure of that.

He looked over his shoulder, and saw that Richie was doing the same, but It had yet to emerge from among the tress. Was it following at all? He desperately hoped it had only intended to scare them. Neither of them was prepared to get into an altercation with it.

“Fuck,” Bill wheezed. He decided, half way up the hill, that he desperately needed to start going to the gym, because he’d barely run ten feet and he was already winded. His lungs might as well have been bean bags for all the air they seemed able to draw in.

His grip on Richie’s arm abruptly dipped and hauled him to the earth, shoulders striking the grass and legs becoming tangled in the weeds. His head struck the dirt with such force that his vision spent a moment alternating between flashes of green and white, then settled into a dizzying swirl of colour. Bill was going to have one hell of a migraine later.

“Oh, fuck!” he heard Richie cry, and he rolled onto his stomach so fast that he heard his back crack.

Richie was on his hands and knees in a perfectly rectangular hole, his face stricken with panic and devoid of colour. At the top of the hole sat a weathered stone slab wrapped in throngs of weeds. Richie’s name had been etched into it in block letters.

_RICHIE TOZIER._

_1978 – 2016._

_REST IN PERPETUAL DESPAIR._

“It’s not real,” said Bill immediately, crawling over to Richie to pull him out of the hole. They needed to flee before It reached them. “It’s not real, Richie. It wasn’t real last time, and it’s not real this time, either. Okay? It’s not real.”

“It’s not real,” Richie parroted, his voice tremoring and feeble. “It’s not real, it’s not real…”

Bill heaved him out of the hole with shaking hands, panting through clenched teeth, and forced both of them to their feet. They resumed running with more caution that they had before.

“Don’t look back,” he told Richie, who snapped his head around to face Bill. “Just look at me. Watch me. I won’t let anything happen. Everything’s going to be alright.”

“O-okay,” stammered Richie, and it was only then that Bill realized he hadn’t stammered once.

He caught Richie’s hand in his and pulled him the rest of the way up the hill. Both of them went propelling at breakneck speed back into the lively streets of Derry and to the relative safety of their hotel.

* * *

_It watched with narrowed eyes as Its quarry and the mouthy boy that accompanied him receded from view. They were close together, shoulder brushing and fingers intertwined, and It was feeling something new broiling under Its skin; jealousy. It did not want the mouthy boy and the writer to be so very close. It did not like it. It did not like it. It did not quite understand why It so loathed their proximity; such things had never bothered It in the past, but It knew It would have done anything to bring a stop to it. Unfortunately, all Its efforts seemed to achieve was additional intimacy._

_Maybe It would remove the mouthy boy’s arms. That would stop the mouthy boy from being able to reciprocate the writer’s shows of intimacy, and from being able to initiate them. And It always did find arms to be among the tastiest parts of a human’s body. Perhaps It would remove the mouthy boy’s arms and suck out the marrow while the mouthy boy watched._

_But first, It needed to pay the writer a visit. It had been patient, and It had been willing to wait until It had picked off all the writers friends… but It did not want to give the writer the opportunity to get close to anyone else. The writer needed to be claimed._

* * *

As he and Richie flew into the hotel lobby, a tan blur Bill belatedly recognised as Beverly practically bowled them over.

“You’re covered in dirt!” she cried, plucking a stick out of Richie’s hair and brushing dirt off Bill’s shoulder. Both of them were looking more than a little dishevelled from their ordeal. “What were you two doing? Rolling down a hill?”

That wasn’t far from the truth, though it was more like ‘falling’ down a hill.

 “Whao, calm down, m’lady,” said Richie. He must have been nervous, because he was affecting one of his accents. “We’re okay. We just took a tumble.”

Bill gently extracted Beverly’s hand from his shoulder, giving it a friendly squeeze before he let go. “What he said,” said Bill, nodding to Richie. He brushed a thin coating of dirt off his nose before he continued. “Where are the o-others? We n-need to t-talk.”

“Bill…” Beverly was frowning at him, and Bill knew it was because of his damned stammering. It was impossible to hide one’s anxiety when stuttering.

“We’re okay. I p-promise we’re okay,” he told Beverly, sliding past her to approach the stairs. He was more in need of a shower than ever. “We’re just a bit s-s-shaken.”

“We had a small encounter,” Richie admitted, following Bill. Beverley walked at their heels.

“Shit,” she breathed. “ _Shit_. We should have made you come with us.”

“It’s okay-“ Richie started, but she shook her head.

“Everyone’s in their rooms,” she told them. “Eddie’s in room thirty six, and Ben’s in thirty nine, in case you’re not aware. I’ll grab everyone and meet you in the lounge. Do you know where the lounge is?” Without waiting for an answer, she pointed over her shoulder at a series of comfortable looking couches and chairs sitting within a glass room. “Barely anyone sits in there since there’s books and no wifi.”

“Thanks, Bev,” said Bill, and he suddenly realized he was still holding Richie’s hand. He let it go. “Could you grab some aspirin while you’re up there? Two or three would be great.” When worry drew lines into Beverly’s forehead, Bill quickly added, “I just have a mild headache.”

“Mild?”

“Y-yeah.” Bill shuffled his feet. He wasn’t a very good liar. “I’ll be fine after having some aspirin and water.”

“Alright,” said Beverly. There was disbelief in her tone, but she made no attempt to initiate an argument. She hurried for the stairs. “You two make yourselves comfortable. I’ll be back in a minute with the others _and_ some aspirin.” On the top-most steps, she continued to yell down at them. “And then you better tell us all about that encounter!”

Bill got the feeling Beverly wasn’t going to let them skimp on any details. They’d have to tell her they’d wandered away from town and to the relative isolation of the barrens. She probably wouldn’t like that.

The word ‘guilty’ may as well have been written on Richie’s face in permanent marker. He seemed to have finally realized wandering out of town may not have been one of their best ideas.

“Try not to i-incriminate us t-t-too much,” said Bill. “Going to the b-b-barrens wasn’t t-that b-bad. A-at least we d-didn’t go to t-the N-N-Neibolt house.”

“I’m not making any promises,” Richie answered, heading for the lounge.

Bill was starting to regret insisting they were okay. He didn’t know if it applied to Richie. His skin was still very pale and he could see sweat shining against his hairline. Bill had to resist the urge to wipe it away.

They sat down in the lounge, thigh to thigh, and waited.


	3. Day 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains a whole lot of NSFW content. Bill and Pennywise do the deed, and it's very explicit, messy, and violent, and very non-conny. Penny isn't exactly the most thoughtful sex partner. Proceed at your own discretion! 
> 
> So, I'm a little nervous about finally posting the most NSFW portion of this fic. I hope people aren't put off by it!

Beverly had forgiven Bill by morning. In fact, Beverly had referred to him as ‘bull-headed, but brave’, and suddenly Bill’s stomach had fluttered so violently that someone may well have dumped a bucket of butterflies down his gullet without his knowledge. He had managed to sleep right through the night, and he thought it in no small part due to the warm way Beverly had been acting towards him. Between Richie and Beverly, he hadn’t felt so loved in his entire life.

They all went out together after breakfast. By noon, they’d had some ice-cream, bought a few trinkets, and Bill had found good ‘ol Silver sitting in the dusty depths of a thrift store. He’d purchased the bike for twenty dollars and Mike had agreed to keep it in his garage.

After lunch, they seated themselves among picnicking families to enjoy the summer sun. Richie sat cross-legged on Bill’s left and Beverly sat daintily on his right, while Eddie engaged him in conversation from his front.

During a lull in activity, Ben leaned back on his hands and asked, “When are we going to go after It?” It was a question all of them had been dreading the answer to. Eddie appeared slightly offended that he’d brought it up at such a peaceful period.

Mike was the one to answer, because Mike knew better than any of them. “When you remember everything, that’s when we go.”

“What if we don’t remember everything?” asked Eddie. “And why can’t we just go now? Do we really need to wait?”

“You  _will_  remember,” Mike said. “You need to remember if you’re going to beat It.” He spoke with such conviction that no questions followed.

They languished for the rest of the afternoon, in no hurry to subject themselves to the horror of It. Every so often, Bill would catch a flash of orange in his peripheral vision, shimmering and dangerous, frightening in its intensity, but there was never anything there when he turned to pursue the source. No one else seemed to notice anything amiss, and Bill eventually decided he was being paranoid. He was still troubled by their encounter with It the day before. Within a day or two, he would have shaken off the feeling that he was being watched… assuming It didn’t start pursuing them before then.

He was a little surprised It hadn’t started hunting them down already. Perhaps it was waiting to catch them alone, pick them off one by one. That would explain why it had yet to approach the other Losers. It could handle two of them, but not six.

Knowing that It was intimidated by their numbers comforted Bill. A long as he was in the vicinity of his friends, It wouldn’t try to attack again.

He grabbed Richie by the wrist and pulled him to his feet, pointing out a crepe stand. The Losers were quick to follow when they announced their intention to get crepes full of chocolate and strawberries.

* * *

In her youth, Beverly Marsh had been among the prettiest girls in Derry. Even as a young boy of eleven, or twelve (it had been such a long time that he couldn’t quite recall exactly when his interest in girls had budded) Bill had recognized this, and he’d thought himself supremely lucky to have had the opportunity to kiss her.

As an adult, she was far more than just pretty; she was a sight to behold, perfect from head to toe, and every time she opened her mouth she was compassionate, and funny, and clever, and Bill loved her for it. Even when she was angry at him, which she had been following his and Richie’s foray into the barrens, he couldn’t help but think about how beautiful and wonderful she was. God, it was ridiculous for a grown man to fluster like a child before a beautiful woman, but he’d been in love with her since he was a boy.

He’d scarcely been able to breathe when she had followed him to his room and indicated interest in him. If not for the fact that Ben was a little way down the hall, watching them from his door with the beginnings of alarm on his face, Bill might have invited her inside. He wasn’t cruel enough to do so when there were only two rooms between himself and Ben.

“Some other time,” he whispered to her, offering her a warm smile before stepping into his room and shutting the door. As he pressed his back up against it, heart thrumming in his throat, he could hear her footsteps receding out of range. Not in Ben’s direction. A momentarily vindictive relief washed over him, and it was promptly followed by shame.

He abandoned the door to lie down on his bed, folding his forearms over his warm face to cool his burning cheeks. He felt like a child again, enamoured with his first crush. The kiss they’d exchanged as children flashed through his mind and he thought about how he would have liked to find out how different it was to kiss an adult Beverly.

Bill stretched and squirmed, ridiculously giddy at the mere thought of being intimate with Beverly. It was probably a good thing he hadn’t invited her into his room; he would have ended up coming in his pants like a little kid if she’d so much as grazed her fingers below his waist. It would have been embarrassing, to say the least.

In an effort to satisfy his ridiculous, boyish desire, he unzipped his trousers and fisted a hard around his half-hard cock, squeezing and stroking languidly at the base. It had been a while since he’d masturbated with any regularity – living in the coldest part of England had minimised his libido – and he knew it wouldn’t take him long to climax. He would go to sleep after and try to forget that he had ever rejected Beverly’s advances.

Images of her played behind his eyelids as he stroked himself into hardness. Beverly smiling, Beverly holding his hand, Beverly planting a soft, chaste kiss on his lips, Beverly standing outside his room - he was lovesick to a shameful extent. The further along he got, the less innocent the images became. His hands cupping her breasts, thumbs brushing over the pink rise of her nipples. Her thick thigh around his waist. Her hands wrapped around his shoulders and lips by his neck, grazing the stretch of tendons as he arched and moaned.

It took incredible effort to remain silent as he stroked. These walls weren’t as thick as he would have liked them to be. He didn’t want to alert any of the other Losers, particularly Richie – who would tease him relentlessly for masturbating prior to their confrontation with It – to what he was doing. He trapped his bottom lip between his teeth, biting gently to restrain any sound. His unoccupied hand fell to the bedsheets and coiled tight around them, pulling them up from the mattress.

So close, now. Beverly’s fingers in her hair, Beverly’s mouth on his skin, Beverly’s full breasts pressed flush to his chest. Beverly, Beverly, Beverly—

The bed dipped with a significant weight and Bill’s eyes snapped open. He found himself looking straight up into fiery orange. A scream almost tore out of his throat; however, before he could utter a sound, a hand clamped down over his mouth and silenced him. He smelt the overpowering scent of decay through its glove.

“Hush now, Billy,” It whispered, gaze darting lewdly down. “We don’t want to wake up your friends, do we?”

Arousal flagging, Bill tore his hand away and tried to hitch up his trousers by the beltloops, finding it difficult to do so with It straddling his hips. He didn’t get far before It pushed his fumbling fingers aside and replaced them with its own. A sharp claw tore at the denim of his jeans, precariously close to his cock.

“Wouldn’t it just be  _horribly_  embarrassing if they walked in on this?” It inclined its bulbous head toward the wall. Three rooms away, Beverly was probably preparing to sleep. “Paper thin walls, right, Billy?”

Bill made a futile effort to throw it off by driving his knees into the small of Its back. Unfortunately, It was much too large, and much too heavy to be moved, effectively tapping him against the mattress with its body. Sweat started to develop on his brow, and it had nothing to do with the lingering heat of arousal.

The tip of its nail delved between his legs, grazing the inside of a thigh. Blood beaded to the surface of a spider-web thin cut. When he tried to push It off by beating his hands against Its chest, the nail dug deeper, sliding through skin and muscle like a knife through butter. He whimpered against the palm of Pennywise’s hand.

“Don’t get  _rowdy_ , Little Buddy.” It smeared the blood over his skin and brought Its sullied fingers to its mouth, licking them clean with its elongated tongue. Saliva dripped in heavy strings from between its pointed teeth. “I’m only here for an  _entrée_ , and you’ll want to keep it that way. The  _main course_  comes later.” 

Bill didn’t particularly want to find out what being an entrée entailed. His struggles began anew, and this time he twisted and arched and flailed his limbs, putting everything he had into parting their bodies. He didn’t even stop when It made a rumbling sound deep in its chest, clearly disgruntled.

“I told you,” was all the warning he received before It dropped Its head between his legs and sunk its jagged teeth into the junction of his thigh. Any attempt Bill made to cry out was muffled by Its hand, turned into a low, primordial sound that had to squeeze between Its fingers. Even the adrenaline surging through his veins wasn’t enough to numb the agony of its teeth tearing into his flesh.

When it finally dislodged, it was with a wet pop, and what little Bill could see of his leg was mangled and bloody. Dozens of perfectly round tooth marks marred the pale expanse of his thigh. Seeing them and knowing they would scar made Bill want to cry.

“I told you,” It said again, its lips so close to his cock that they smeared the underside with his own blood. The pain was promptly overcome by a terror he would be rendered a eunuch by that strong jaw. “Now I’m going to be a lot less  _nice_.”

The hand on his mouth finally retreated. Bill considered calling out for help, because surely the clown would skitter away when the other Losers arrived, but this thought was banished from his mind when It grasped him by the hips and proceeded to draw his cock into Its gaping maw. Bill’s mind went blank. Completely and utterly blank. Of all the things he had expected It to do, the ‘less nice’ things, this had not been among them.

He had just enough presence of mind to gasp instead of yell. There was not a hint of warmth inside its mouth. It was cold, and wet, like dipping one’s extremities into a lake (in this case, a particularly sensitive extremity), and Bill couldn’t begin to understand why pleasure swept through him with such intensity that he involuntarily jerked his hips. There was something strange and otherworldly and  _delectable_  in its throat, and Bill’s body had turned so weak that he wouldn’t have been able to resume struggling even if he’d wanted to. It was the single most amazing sensation he had ever experienced. He curled his body over Pennywise’s head, fisting his hands in its collar, alternating between pushing it away and pulling it closer. He thought he might just go insane from the intensity of it all. Every nerve in his body had been rubbed raw and bloody, and with every swill of its tongue, they were snapping like the strings of a violin.

It gave a suck of the sensitive ring of muscle surrounding the head of his cock and Bill threw his head back and closed his teeth around a moan. His nails bit into Its shoulders as his hips jerked once, twice, and then fell still. He dropped unceremoniously back to the squeaky hotel mattress and managed to forget, for just a brief moment, whose lips it had been wrapped around his cock. His head had never before been so blissfully empty.

“My turn,” the clown said, and Bill was drawn back into the present by Pennywise dragging him closer. His efforts at resistance were feeble, inhibited by the lingering warmth and bonelessness of his climax.

“Get the fuck off me,” he hissed, quiet enough that he was sure the other Losers wouldn’t come rushing to his aid. He desperately didn’t want them to see him like this, his dick out and thoroughly  _wet_.

“Tit for tat.” It shook its finger. “You know the rules.”

Did it even have a dick? Bill suspected no, and when he glanced down at what exactly it wanted him to stimulate, he realized with disgust that he was entirely correct.

Whatever was between its legs was not a dick. It was a series of wet, squirming tentacles, dark blue in colour and wet with a viscous liquid that stained the bedsheet in messy patches. Bill retreated until his back hit the headboard, and It followed suit, grabbing him by the nape of his neck and pulling him down.

“Come on, Little Buddy,” It trilled. “Don’t you like this? You wanted to do this with Bevvie, didn’t you? Or maybe Richie-boy? Both at the same time?”

The appendages were cool to the touch, sliding over his lips and jaw as Pennywise pressed him firmly to its lap. All it took was a tug of his hair to get his mouth open, and then they were sliding past his lips, down his throat, invading every inch of his mouth and reaping it of all warmth. He choked around their collective girth, his jaw stretched wide enough to ache. The liquid they expelled collected under his bottom lip and dripped messily down his chin. There was an overwhelming taste of saccharine sweetness on his tongue.

The sounds the clown made as it thrust languidly into his mouth were  _obscene_. Low, guttural growls and moans, like an unthinking beast. Its jaw was slack and the accumulation of drool in its maw soaked into its collar and dripped onto Bill’s quivering back. Its hands moved to cradle his head, holding it in place.

“There really isn’t much difference between love and hate, Billy,” the clown murmured. One of its thumbs stroked along his straining jaw. It intimacy of it was somehow worse than the appendages pistoning at the back of his throat. “Oh, and I  _loathe_  you, Billy. That makes you my  _special_  Little Buddy.” It released a series of trilling laughs. “My speeecial Little Buddy, with a wet warm mouth and a warm body.”

Bill swallowed around the tentacles and regretted it immediately as the syrupy liquid leaking off of them pooled in his stomach, impossibly cold. When he gagged, Pennywise used it as an opportunity to drive itself deeper, jarring his cheek against its pelvis.

“You won’t get away this time.” Its fingers dragged almost lovingly over his cheek. “You know that, don’t you? You won’t succeed.” Slow, languish thrusts. Bill was starting to get dizzy from a lack of oxygen. “You’re too old. You can’t do what you did as a child.”

Disorientated though he was, Bill was struck with the horrible thought that maybe that was true. Perhaps his age, his belief in reality, in what one  _saw_  rather than  _felt_ , was what enabled it to assault him in this manner. His anger was a hot and righteous force, but would that be enough this time? It certainly hadn’t done anything to help him get out of his current predicament. He would have liked to at least bite down, but his jaw was stretched too wide to accommodate any kind of resistance.

“You’ll lose,” It continued in a murmur, voice uncharacteristically soft. “And I will take you in  _every_  meaning of the word, Little Buddy. You’re mine.”

He thought, distantly, of punching it in the crotch; wouldn’t that feel wonderful? He might even break something if he punched hard enough. But he wanted this to be over, and he wasn’t sure how much longer this would take if he angered it further, and there was so much worse it could do to him if he pushed it too far. So many more awful, humiliating things It could subject him to before morning.

Beverly, Richie—

He could just imagine their faces if It called them in. Their revulsion, their pity. He wasn’t sure  _any_  of the Losers would be able to meet his eyes again if they witnessed this.

“Yesss,” It hissed. “We wouldn’t want that. Wouldn’t want anyone to see me  _humble_  you.”

Its in my head, he thought, stupidly offended (weren’t there more important things to be focusing on?). He started a mantra:  _out, out, out, out_ , but it didn’t appear to be heard.

Maybe this whole ordeal was sending him a little off the deep end. He hoped, when he finally left Derry, it would be among the things he didn’t remember.

He was deeply relieved when it finally released him, allowing him to draw back and wipe his mouth clean on the corner of the bedsheet. He spat onto the floor, a messy concoction of saliva and whatever-the-fuck was being expelled by the appendages, and attempted to flee the bed. It grabbed him under the arms before his feet could touch the floor.

“We’re nowhere near done, Billy!” It exclaimed, and Bill tried and failed to hook a leg over the edge of the mattress as It pulled him into its lap. Several of its appendages slithered up between his shaking thighs and pried at his underwear, trying to slide beneath. He thrashed in Its grip like a fish on an embankment. One of Its arms folded over his chest, holding him tight to an impossibly large torso. Its gloved fingers hooked over the waistband of his underwear and drew them down, agonizingly slow.

“My kind don’t need to do such things.” It spoke against his neck, wetting it with saliva. “But I am curious to feel it. And you as warm on the inside as you are on the outside, Billy? Let’s find out.”

It breached him with surprising care. The thick, mucus-like liquid made the journey an easy one, and while the stretch of being invaded by multiple appendages was uncomfortable, borderline painful, there was an undercurrent of pleasure that Bill desperately wished wasn’t there.  His cock was half hard. He saw it, and felt it getting even harder, and he hated himself for it.

When It cupped Its hands under his knees and started rocking him in its lap, he felt so impossibly, painfully,  _wonderfully_  full that he couldn’t help the wail that fell from his lips. It wasn’t supposed to feel this good, but the slick tips of Its appendages were touching something small and sensitive inside of him and his entire body was trembling and hot as a consequence.

He thought, dimly, of the doctor visits he’d had to get his prostate checked. Those had generally ended in a rather humiliating fashion.

“You’re hot,” the clown stated, swiping its tongue over what little of his back it could reach. “Mmmm… lovely hot… I can feel the blood rushing inside you, Little Buddy. You feel almost as good as a fresh meal.”

He curled his toes and fisted his hands in its trousers, breaths coming out in harsh pants. Every time it moved, even just a little, it would rub against his prostate and the warm, buzzing pleasure enveloping his body would intensify.

“I h-hate you,” he managed to press past clenched teeth. He fought to push his anger to the forefront of his mind, but the pleasure was incredible and demanding. It was like trying to swim to the surface of a raging ocean.

“But I’m making you feel  _good_.” Its long fingers touched the head of his cock, and Bill thought he might just cry from how sensitive it was. When Pennywise fisted a hand around it, he really did shed a few tears, dropping his chin to his clavicle to hide his burning face from view. It only needed to give it a few languid strokes before it was simply too much, too much-

For the second time that night, he climaxed, coming messily into Its hand. He moved unconsciously, clenching and shivering, stars dancing before his eyes as a sublime completion engulfed him once again. 

“Whoops,” It said, as thought it had gotten him off again completely by accident. It tucked its hand back up under his knee, smudging his skin with a gossamer of his own fluid.

His knees were pressed to his shoulders, and he hadn’t though he was nearly flexible enough to achieve such a thing, but there he was, in Its lap with his knees to his shoulders and his ass on display as dozens of tentacles pulsated deep inside of him. 

He felt its mouth upon his back. Teeth grazed the bobs of his spine and a hot, sticky tongue laved over the sweaty skin at the nape of his neck, tasting him. Whatever It tasted, it seemed to like, because it made a low rumbling sound in its throat and began to move with increased vigour. Its thighs snapped against his own, and the stretch was  _incredible_ , painful in the most delectable way. He thought – feared – he might climax again. He wasn’t even sure he had the energy for it at this point.

With one final jerk of its hips, It secured its teeth around his shoulder and a surprisingly pleasurable coolness expended in his belly. It snarled against his skin, possessive and content, and refused to release him long after Its full-body shivers had started to subside and the coolness It had expelled into him had begun to leak down the insides of his thighs.  It seemed an eternity before it finally withdrew its teeth and gently removed him from Its appendages.

Bill was sore in places he hadn’t even known could be sore. He blinked fuzzily up at It, wanting to express his utter contempt and loathing and disgust but lacking the energy to do so. He was barely able to push himself up onto his elbows, exhausted as he was.

“F-fucker,” was all he managed, his voice hoarse from the abuse his throat had been subjected to.

It leaned close, its bright red lips inches from his own. “That I am,” It said, its tone jovial. “And you liked it. You felt good.”

Bill would have liked to be able to deny that with a modicum of truth, but It was right. He’d felt good. He’d felt amazing, in fact. He’d been introduced to a pleasure he hadn’t even known the human body had the capacity for.

As it slithered away, it murmured, “You’ll beg for me, eventually,” and Bill was afraid that It might be right.

He lay motionless on his bed for an indeterminable length of time. The fluids between his legs turned glutinous and the throbbing soreness in his body started to recede. He moved only when the air turned too frigid for him to tolerate and entered his bathroom, running himself a hot bath on autopilot. As he slid into the water, he looked down and saw bloody toothmarks in his thigh, dangerously deep, and realized he would need to wrap them in something. Some gauze, if he could find a roll. He didn’t want to have to go out and buy some. There was a bite on his shoulder, too, but it was superficial enough that he could probably get away with covering it in some band aids.

The water turned pink within minutes of him entering it. He started to rub his wounds clean with a palm and the coloured deepened. The next part he started on were his thighs, and lower, and his face burned with shame when his cock stirred at the slight activity around his entrance. He extracted as much of the syrupy liquid as he could reach and then applied soap to every inch of his body, rinsing off. He felt rejuvenated as he rose from the tub, reaching for the complimentary towel sitting on the sink.

Once he was dry, he paused to examine himself in the mirror. It had left vivid bruises on his neck, wrists, shoulder, and thighs. They were pink now, but they would inevitably turn black and blue by morning. He was going to have to wear long sleeved shirts with collars until they faded away.

After some searching, Bill uncovered a first aid kit in the bottom drawer of the sink cabinet. He withdrew a bottle of antiseptic, a packet of band aids, and a roll of gauze and hastily applied them to his wounds. Though he poked around the contents of the first aid kit for some cream, there wasn’t anything in there that could assist with the bruising. He would just have to give those time to heal.

Bill stowed the first aid kit back in its drawer and re-entered the bedroom, retrieving a pair of comfortable pyjamas from his suitcase. He pulled them on and lay down on his stomach in bed. Fury and shame drifted at the edge of his consciousness, but mostly he was fatigued and painfully empty, and he wanted desperately to sleep. Come morning, he would have to request a change of linens and think up an excuse for both the blood and the gunky blue liquid It had left on his bedsheets.

When he squeezed his eyes shut, he subsided into an uneasy sleep within minutes.


	4. Day 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys like this chapter! It's 7.5k, so the longest one yet.

Richie was the first to notice the limp in Bill’s step when he came down for breakfast. Unfortunately, being Richie Tozier, he said the worst possible thing as Bill took his seat at their designated table.

“Well, well, someone had fun last night, huh? That’d certainly explain the yell I heard.”

When Richie turned to flutter his lashes at Beverly, Bill’s face turned red right up to the tips of his ears. Tozier and his non-existent brain-to-mouth filter had struck again.

“Nothing ha-h-happened,” he mumbled, speaking before Beverly could reply to Tozier’s silent inquisition. He tugged the collar of his plaid shirt higher up his neck. “I just hit my t-toe while getting i-into the tub. Ended up c-c-cutting it, too, and getting my l-linins replaced. T-the c-cleaning ladies g-glared at me the ehn-e-entire time.” He was starting to talk in a bit of a babble, but he continued on regardless, “Think they’ll ch-c-charge me for that?”

“They’ll squeeze you for every dollar they can,” said Ben. He was in the process of salting a generous helping of scrambled eggs.

“If you say so, Big Bill,” said Richie, but Bill could hear the incredulity in his voice. Richie’s hand slid across the table and patted at the absence of Bill’s plate.  “Hey, aren’t you gonna get something to eat? You can’t just have a cup of coffee for breakfast.”

The concern in Richie’s voice sent Bill’s heart racing. He gulped down an anxious little sound, shaking his head.

“N-not hungry.”

“You sure? There’s bacon and those tiny breakfast sausages.”

Bill forced himself to smile. Could people tell when people fake-smiled? He didn’t know. He hoped it looked more convincing than it felt.

“Y-yeah, I didn’t g-get much sleep last night.” He gulped down half the contents of his cup, then continued speaking. “I think I’ll go for a w-walk later to ch-c-clear my head. I could use s-some fresh a-air.”

“You’re stammering an awful lot,” Beverly observed, and Bill wanted nothing more than to turn invisible. He felt five pairs of eyes on him and didn’t dare lift his own to meet them. Maybe they knew what had happened last night, maybe they could tell. He might not have worn thick enough clothes. Could his injuries be seen through the fibres? Would Beverly ever forgive him for enjoying himself? Would Eddie ever want to touch him again?

He was working himself up, breaths coming short and fast, skin prickling with anxiety.

“Bill-“ Richie began, and Bill threw himself out of his chair under the guise of grabbing himself something to eat from the buffet.

“N-never mind, guess I am hungry.” This was a lie, but he could force a couple of morsels down his throat for the sake of credibility. He grabbed himself a plate and piled on bacon, eggs, and toast, taking his time with smothering condiments on all three. Barbecues sauce, mustard, and strawberry jam for the toast. He didn’t return to the table until he could hear the Losers discussing something other than his late-night activities.

Richie continued to gawk at him long after his participation in the conversation had ended, and Bill found it a touch nerve wracking to be watched while he shovelled his disgusting concoction of mustard and barbeque sauce into his mouth. If he paused to listen, he was sure he would have heard his taste buds committing suicide.

“Well, that was disgusting,” he heard Eddie say, and looked up just enough to see Eddie regarding his empty plate with revulsion.

“Tasted fine,” Bill lied, licking his lips to emphasise his claim. They were burning from the mustard. Should he ever need to subject himself to another meal swimming in condiments, he would definitely go for a tomato and barbeque sauce combination instead.

He washed his breakfast down with what was left of his coffee and excused himself, hastily heading for the door. He didn’t manage to reach it before Richie caught up to him.

“Wait up, man.”

Bill was tempted to ignore Richie, let him think Bill was angry at him (and he was, just a little bit. It was Richie’s fault he’d ended up drawing the attention of everyone at the table), but Bill was too soft-hearted to leave his friend to swelter in guilt. He stopped just before liberty, turning to face Richie with a weary sigh.

“What do you w-want, Richie?” he asked, and he really tried for some patience, but patience was in short supply after the night he’d had.

Riche gave a nervous titter. It was such an odd sound to hear out of Richie that it probably would have been endearing under different circumstances. “If what I said about you and Bev was out of line, I’m really sorry about that. You know that little voice people have that tell them to shut up?” He snapped his fingers at the side of his head. “Mine’s completely non-existent. I have never, a day in my life, thought before I’ve spoken.”

The obvious hyperbole brought a reluctant curl to Bill’s lips. “I know,” said Bill. “You don’t have a b-brain-to-mouth filter, but that’s why we lo-l-love you, Richie.”

“You love me? Oh _Billy_.” Richie was now putting on his best biker impression. He swiped a palm over his unkempt hair, as though slicking it back with a comb. “Y’should’ve told me earlier, baby! I’ve been gettin’ tired of those back seat bimbos – Richie Tozier wants himself a proper gal!”

This was a game they had played many a time as children. Cops and robbers; maiden and prince; evil wizard and mighty hero; come to think of it, Bill had been made to play the girl an awful lot.

Despite himself, Bill started to affect a soft, feminine voice. “Don’t try to sweet talk me, Tozier. My mother warned me about boys like you.”

“Oh, I bet she did,” began Richie, sidling in closer, his arm coming up to trap Bill against the glass door. “But if anyone can keep this big daddy on the straight and narrow, it’s _you_ , babe, because there ain’t nothin’ I wouldn’t do for those perky tits.”

It was simply impossible not to grin.

“They are indeed the perkiest, but how does a girl know if she can trust a bad boy like you?”

“You don’t,” said Richie, winking, and when Richie added, “Also, I have never worn a rubber in my life, so sleeping with me is a lifelong commitment,” Bill had to stifle a howl of laughter with a hand. He always had loved Richie’s voices as a child.

“I’m forgiven, I take it?” asked Richie tentatively, removing his arm from the door and stretching to his full height. It was only now that Bill realized Richie stood a few inches taller. It was surprising he hadn’t attempted to lord that over Bill yet considering how many times Bill had utilized his superior height to his advantage in their youth. Richie had always complained of cheating when they’d held games of basketball (which had typically been three against three, with Eddie observing from the sidelines).

“You’re s-still on thin ice, t-trashmouth,” said Bill. “But I m-might feel more forgiving if I return to l-l-liquorice and a Bloody Mary. Just a tip.”

“I’ll keep it in mind!”

Bill’s mood had improved significantly when they parted ways. That was not to last, however, as he caught sight of a cherry-red balloon rising out of a gutter when he entered the footpath. The words ‘I love Derry’ were emblazoned on the front in capital letters. He blinked, and he was sure, for just a split second, that the words had been replaced with a messy scrawl of his name, but the balloon drifted out of sight before he could examine it further.

He had no destination in mind when he began walking, and his meandering eventually led him to a nearby park. There were so many children on the playground that one could barely hear anything over their collective shouting and screaming.

It was _perfect_.

Bill lowered himself to a grassy spot in the shade and watched the children frolic. Their simple adolescent delight put him at ease. He could remember playing on that very playground when he’d been a boy, though it appeared the council had given it a fresh coating of paint and added a merry-go-round. It was probably a good thing the merry-go-round hadn’t been present for _his_ childhood. He could only imagine what terrible deeds Henry Bowers would have used it for.

Bill rolled onto his side, leaning on his elbows. A little ways from him, he saw a bird pecking at the ground in search of food, rising with a wiggling worm held between its beak. A little father up the park, a dog bounded after a frisbee, and a couple laughed and threaded their fingers together. It was all very relaxing to observe. Bill might have been a recluse – which was often a necessary part of his occupation – but he did find pleasure in watching life. It was a peaceful way to waste one’s time, and Bill had no intention of doing anything but wasting his time today.

After a while, Bill lay down in the grass and folded his arms beneath his head. Every so often he would glance over at the children playing nearby, and he found himself grinning at the various things he observed: children claiming they would leap off a high object, but hesitating at the edge; children screaming joyfully as they slid down the slide; children contesting over who could swing the highest; children spinning wildly on the merry-go-round. Such ignorance and innocence…

A shadow slid over him.

“Hey, mister!”

It took Bill’s relaxed mind a second to register that there was a child hunched over him. In his haste to sit upright, he almost went slamming into the boy’s head. Fortunately for both of them, the boy managed to retreat before their foreheads could connect.

“F-fu-f-“ He snapped his teeth down over the swear. That was not the sort of language appropriate for a child’s ears. “Sorry a-about that,” he said, pulling his knees beneath himself in preparation to stand. “D-did you ne-n-need something?”

The child had a messy mop of black hair and brown eyes. His irises were so dark that Bill could just about make out the pupil, and though he was at the playground, the lad was dressed in a school uniform. Black shorts, a dress shirt, a red tie, and a jacket. ‘Derry High’ was embroidered on the front in red, and below that was the name ‘Robert Gray’. That must have been the kids name.

“Could you help me?” asked Robert.

“Sure,” said Bill, rising to his feet. Perhaps he’d gotten lost on his way to school. Bill had thought classes would have ended by now, but he supposed it was only mid-June, and some schools closed later than others. “What’s w-wrong?” he asked. “Are you l-lost?”

“I’ll show you,” said the boy.

Robert offered his hand and Bill accepted it, allowing the child to guide him through the park and toward an empty street.

“Is your s-school far from here?” he asked.

The boy shook his head. “I don’t go to school today.”

“But y-you’re in a school uniform.”

“I don’t go to school,” the boy insisted, so Bill didn’t inquire further.

“What’s the ph-p-p-problem, t-then?” he asked.

Robert smiled up at him. His eyes turned fudge brown when hit by the sun. “You’ll see.”

“Well, that’s o-ominous,” Bill joked, though he was starting to get the sense that this wasn’t quite normal. They were heading straight for an alleyway. “M-maybe we should fuh-f-find your parents. Are they around h-here? If they aren’t, I’d be h-h-happy to t-take you to a p-police station.”

“I don’t have parents.”

Bill wetted his lips. That alleyway looked awful dark. He couldn’t make out anything except a couple of overflowing trash cans. “Everyone has p-parents.”

“Not me,” stated Robert. “Kids like me don’t have parents. I’m all on my own.”

He attempted to dislodge the boys grip by giving his arm a powerful shake, but Robert’s tiny hand was secured like a vice around Bill’s fingers. He was latched on like a limpet. Or ‘It’, rather, was latched on like a limpet. “You’re n-not a kid, are y-you?”

The boy merely smiled at him. The dark brown of his eyes had turned a startling orange that glittered dangerously under the glare of the sun. Bill’s stomach made a sudden, convulsing jump, just for a second or two, and he had to swallow down a swell of bile.

It had caught him with the _same trick_ it’d used twenty-seven years ago. Bill wanted to kick himself.

It began to transform as It wrenched him into the alleyway, Its limbs elongating and ruffles sprouting out from Its neck, wrists, and ankles. It shook violently as its muscles stained and convulsed, stretching like taffy over its expanding body. The whole process was rather disturbing to witness, like watching a rabid animal turn itself inside out. Bill couldn’t seem to bring himself to look away.

The moment It was finished, it turned and fanned its large hands over Bill’s chest, pressing him into the wall of the alleyway with a bizarre gentleness. The rough redbrick scraped at Bill’s back through his shirt.

“Billy,” It greeted. Bill tensed beneath its grip. When it leaned in and inhaled against his jaw, he tensed even further, hands involuntarily curling into fists.

“Get off me,” he growled, snapping a fist against its chest. It was completely unperturbed by his assault.

“Get you off?” It asked, mouth curling at the edges.

Bill’s cheeks warmed. “N-no, I don’t- I d-don’t want you to t-touch me.”

“You enjoyed yourself before.” It descended lower, the tip of its nose dragging down the pale column of his neck, Its fingers slipping beneath the folds of his shirt. Cool fabric teased along his belly, then higher, reaching for the more sensitive parts of him.

For a horrible moment, Bill eagerly anticipated It putting its mouth on his cock, submerging him back into that wonderful, rapturous pleasure, and he hated himself for it.

“Wh-why are you d-doing t-this?” Its cool tongue dipped into the hollow of his throat. Bill shivered. “Why are you d-doing this? I th-t-thought you wanted to k-k-kill me.”

“That would be a waste,” the beast rumbled. “Tasty, tasty Billy boy… I will eat you _slowly_.” A thumb brushed over the hard nub of a nipple and Bill grasped at Its hand, embarrassed.

“Don’t t-touch that.”

“But it felt good, didn’t it?”

“No.”

It regarded him sardonically. “A lie.”

“J-just don’t touch t-them.”

To Bill’s great surprise, It obeyed his command, retracting Its fingers. They came to rest on his skin-warm belt buckle.

“W-why are you doing this?” he asked again, desperate for an answer.

It leaned back just enough to look him in the eye. Even standing at his full height, It had well over two feet on Bill.

“Were you not listening, last we met?” Slowly, it undid his belt. “You’re my Little Buddy. _My_ Little Buddy.”

“I don’t – don’t know what t-that means.”

Full of loathing for himself and for It, Bill nonetheless found himself lifting his hips to accommodate the removal of his belt, watching as it slid smoothly from Its loops. Wasn’t he better than this? He was sure he was, but his body moved without his guidance, and Pennywise’s talented fingers slipped beneath the waistband of his underwear and grasped at the base of his cock. Bill bit so hard into his bottom lip that it started to bleed. A rivulet of blood no thicker than a hair strand dripped off his chin.

“You belong to I,” It continued, unblinking as it stroked Bill into semi-hardness. His legs quivered beneath the ministrations. “And I will do as I wish to you, and I wish to make you feel good.”

“Y-you’re a monster,” he stammered. “M-monster… hurting… hurt my friends, and…”

“Maybe I won’t,” the beast murmured. “If you’re good.”

The hand around his cock constricted and Bill moaned so loud and wantonly that he was sure someone must have heard. “W-what are you doing to me?” he asked, breathless, and it wasn’t a question about the hand fisted around his cock. There was an incredible, crawling heat burrowing under his skin, a presence that smothered all desire to escape. Reluctantly, angrily, shamefully, he _wanted_ to indulge.

“That is all you, Little Buddy,” It said, and Bill couldn’t tell whether it was lying or not. “Your kind is prone to addiction.”

“I’m not- I’m not-“ and even as he spoke, he was grabbing at Its clothes, pulling It closer.

“You have to ask me for it, Little Buddy.”

His pulling weakened. He shook his head, trying to reorientate himself. His blood was pooling far too fast into his groin. “N-not g-g-gonna happen.”

Its thumb slid over the leathery head of his cock, smearing it with a bead of precum. “Ask me for it,” It said quietly, voice low and dangerous. There was emphasis on ‘it’. “Ask me, or I’ll find someone else to play with. One of your friends… the trashmouth, perhaps?” Its grip tightened, and Bill hissed past clenched teeth. “Maybe I’ll just tear _his_ right off.”

“D-don’t touch h-him.”

“I won’t.” It gave a gentle stroke, and Bill had to stifle a groan. “If you ask me for it.”

Bill’s bottom lip trembled. He hated It, hated this. Hated that it felt so fucking good that he probably would have begged, eventually, even without the threat.

“Y-you’ll leave a-a-all my friends a-alone?”

“Yes.”

“You p-p-promise?” His phrasing was a little childish, perhaps, but it was hard to think with someone’s hand in your pants.

“Yeees,” It said again.

Bill swallowed. “I wa-w-want it.”

That was all the encouragement It needed. It caught him under the thighs and heaved him up the wall, pushing his legs over its broad shoulders. He didn’t quite understand what It was trying to do until Its lips closed over his cock, sending a rush of dizzying pleasure shooting though his abdomen. It descended until its mouth brushed the sparse trail of hair running up his belly and Bill was so overwrought with sensation that he feared he would pass out. His thoughts were a jumble of incomplete sentences – oh god- please don’t st- that feels so – and he was shaking so badly that he almost didn’t manage to secure his arms around Its head, coiling his tremoring fingers into its soft orange hair. When it growled low in its throat, the sensation sent sparks flying before his eyes.

Its slick tongue laved at the underside of his cock and Bill let out one long, wanton note. He ceased to care about his anger, about his loathing, about his friends, and about himself. He didn’t care so long as this would continue and continue and never stop. Fuck everything, as long as he had _this_.

(Later, he would be furious with himself for these thoughts, but he would not think about them until well after the event.)

He breathed in short, ragged gasps and bucked as much as he could into Its willing throat, hard enough that Its fingers dug into his thighs to restrain him. Its claws dragged little red lines into his skin and Bill didn’t mind at all, thinking vaguely that the pain just made the pleasure all the sweeter. He whimpered and withered in its grasp until completion finally claimed him.

It had taken Bill all of a few minutes to finish, and when he did, It gently lowered him to the ground and sat him upon Its thighs, cradling him to its chest. His head was still blissfully empty, so he allowed it to hold him and stroke his hair and tuck him under its chin without protest. He was wonderfully empty and somehow simultaneously full.

“Billy,” It said softly. “Billllly.”

He answered in a grunt.

“I’m going to take you home.”

Home… home… back to the hotel? He didn’t particularly want the Losers to see him like this, but he was so very comfortable and tired that he wasn’t as concerned as he should have been.

One of Its arms came up under his knees, the other holding him to Its chest.

“Down we go, Little Buddy. Let me give you a tour of my home.”

His home.

 _Its_ home.

Bill did not want to go into the sewers. If he did, he didn’t know if he would ever be allowed to leave.

He struck it under the jaw with a fist so suddenly and so hard that it immediately released him, dropping him to the ground with a painful thud of colliding bone. The pain didn’t hinder Bill. He ignored it, rolling onto his knees to leap forward like a frog, then stumble his way to his feet and propel himself out the mouth of the alleyway. He hands flew to his trousers to pull and zip them up as he entered the footpath.

Whether It tried to pursue, he didn’t know; he didn’t look back long enough to check. If he looked back, he would slow down, and that was the last thing Bill wanted to do.

It was the second time in two days that he had been forced to run. All the bliss receded in an instant. Everything started to hurt, burning and aching with a ferocity that brought moisture to Bill’s eyes. What little air he had in his lungs came out in harsh pants, wracking his whole body. Beads of sweat soaked into his hairline.

He pounded down the footpath and didn’t stop until he was back at the hotel, surging through the double doors, pushing his way into the elevator. Then, finally, he was safe.

He stood sweating and panting against the elevator wall, his legs wobbling with all the strength of a newborn fawns. He leaned his forehead into the lovely cool metal of the elevator and groped blindly behind him for the buttons. He wasn’t close enough to reach them.

“Bill, are you alright?”

Bill spun on his heels and saw that Mike was standing in the elevator door.

“Y-yeah,” he stammered, twisting a hand around his shirt and bringing it up to wipe perspiration off his face. “Just w-w-went for a j-jog. Maybe o-overdid it.”

“Sure looks like it,” said Mike, joining him in the elevator and pressing the button for the second floor. “Actually, I was hoping to find you here. I noticed Silver has a flat tire and I have a repair kit I could lend you.”

“You k-keep a re-r-repair kit around the h-house?”

“I bought it a few weeks before phoning you, coincidentally.”

Bill slid into a corner so Mike could stand beside him for their journey up. The elevator doors closed.

“You sure you’re okay?” asked Mike, and Bill could feel Mike surveying his sweaty, dishevelled, and trembling form. “Did you get enough sleep?”

He wiped his palms on his thighs to dry them. “Yes, m-mother, I got e-e-enough sleep.” He sent Mike a good-natured smile. “I just n-need some water. I think I s-s-sweated too m-much.”

“When did you last have something to drink?”

“Breakfast. W-what’s the time now?”

“It’s noon, Bill!” Mike gently slapped him upside the head. “Bring a water bottle next time you run. That sort of irresponsible crap is why so many people pass out during summer.”

“I know, I’m s-sorry.”

When the elevator doors re-opened, Mike clapped a hand over his shoulder and guided him down the hall. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. I’ll give you a ride down to my place when you’re looking a little more presentable.”

Considering how sweaty and odorous he was, ‘a little’ was an understatement. He would have to towel down before he stepped anywhere near his clean clothes. 

Mike sat in his bedroom and flicked through channels while he cleaned himself up, redid his bandages, and dressed. He made quick work of getting ready, gaze lingering on the pipes, afraid It would emerge from them and drag him down into the dark depths of Derry. The pipes were, after all, how it travelled, and Bill was sure its shape shifting abilities enabled it to appear in people’s bathrooms.

To his great relief, he managed to leave his bathroom without an encounter. He stepped into the bedroom and joined Mike on the bed, hunching over his knees to pull on his boots and do up the laces. Mike extended him a bottle of water.

“It was in the mini-fridge. Three dollars, but I’m guessing a famous author like yourself can afford that.”

Bill accepted the bottle and took a generous gulp, then proceeded to drink the rest without pausing to breathe. He hadn’t realized just how thirsty he was. He must have sweated out all the coffee he’d had that morning.

He handed the empty bottle back to Mike. “Thanks.”

“Uh…” Mike threw it in a nearby trash can. “No problem. Looks I just saved you from dying of dehydration.”

He licked his lips, finding them chapped. “I’ll need a-a-another b-bottle before I’m a-alive enough to confirm t-that.”

“Once we get back to my place, you can have all the water you want.”

“G-goodie.”

Unsurprisingly, Mike’s mode of transport was an old pickup truck, thoroughly weathered with blue paint peeling off in patches. The engine groaned when he turned the accelerator and it took three attempts before the vehicle would start.

Hadn’t Mike’s uncle driven this, once? He couldn’t remember. Their childhood was still returning to Bill in bits and pieces. He had to scramble to piece them together before they fell through his fingers.

Bill leaned against the window as they drove and stared out at the passing scenery, trying not to think of dark alleyways and cool bliss.

* * *

Since his uncle’s death, Mike had taken over the family farm. Bill enjoyed the change of scenery. He’d always found farmland peaceful, hence his decision to move from the busy city of New York to the quiet countryside of South England. They sat on his porch while Bill fixed his bike, then gave it a test run through the vast front yard. Both of them were in high spirits by the time they retired to Mike’s kitchen for a late lunch. They spent the following couple of hours reminiscing about the better aspects of their childhood, laughing about all the stupid things they’d done as kids and all the drama of middle school. Only when it started to get dark did they return to the hotel. Upon reuniting with the other Losers, Richie proposed a game of monopoly (which Richie had purchased in advance), and all of them sat in the lounge and played into the late hours of the night. When Bill spoke of being thirsty, Richie produced a packet of liquorice and two Bloody Mary’s, which Bill shared with Eddie and Richie. He managed to win the first game of monopoly, though Eddie beat him in the following one.

He returned to his room that night with the sense that he was loved and safe. He opened his door, stepped into the dark of his room, and those feelings fragmented as he stripped down and prepared himself for bed. His fingers grazed his sullied bandages. Pin-pricks of blood were dark against the white. He made sure to change them before he slipped into his pinstriped pyjamas.

Lying down in bed, he peeled open a magazine he’d brought up from downstairs and read an article on the dangers of using clumping cat litter to lull himself toward sleep. On the third paragraph, his eyelids started to droop. He hadn’t known someone could write so much on such a tedious subject.

A soft ‘tink’ from his window snapped him back to full awareness.

Before he could turn to investigate the sound, another, louder ‘tink’ rattled his window. He put his magazine aside and stood, reaching for the mechanism that would part the blinds. He had a good idea of what he would find behind them.

Drawing in a deep breath, he pulled it down.

Pennywise was leaning on his windowsill, tapping the glass with one long, black talon. His mouth stretched into an impossibly wide grin upon seeing Bill.

Bill considered closing the blind, but decided against it; he doubted it would do anything to dissuade It from entering the room.

“N-not gonna a-a-announce yourself by a-assaulting me this time, huh?” He took a step away from the window, eyeing the door. Would It follow if he ran to Richie’s room? It was possible, and he didn’t want to expose Richie to the clown through his own cowardice.

“That can be arranged,” said the clown wryly, making a tapping motion at the window latch. “Let me in.”

“No.”

Bill grabbed the magazine and rolled it into a tight circle, knowing full well it would do absolutely nothing should he try to hit It with it.

“Let me in, or I pay one of your friends a visit.”

Bill narrowed his eyes. “You s-said you w-wouldn’t.”

“For that occasion, yes.” It tapped more insistently at the latch. “Let me in, Billy. You have to let me in.”

“I really d-don’t,” he retorted, backing up another step.

“Maybe I’ll pay the girl a visit… sweet little Beverly…” It tongued its incisors. “Would you prefer that? You might even be able to _hear_ us.”

His heart skipped a beat. “W-w-what are you g-going to do if I l-let you in? W-what do you want?” He was anticipating, and almost hoping it was just sex, and he was more than a little frustrated about feeling that way.

“A kiss,” It said simply. “Just a kiss, Little Buddy. I want to _taste_ you.”

Bill grimaced in disgust. He hadn’t had its tongue down his throat yet and he didn’t particularly want it down there, either. He’d had a bad enough time with its… whatever the fuck was between Its legs. Its tongue would surely taste ten times worse.

“Th-t-that’s a human t-thing. W-why would you want t-t-to do a hu-h-human thing?”

“Don’t presume to know anything about my kind, brat.” A low hiss assaulted Bill’s ears as It scraped its talons along the glass. “I am giving you one more opportunity to let. Me. In.”

He’d made It angry. _Fuck_. Not angry enough to break the window, at least, but angry enough that Bill expected the ‘kiss’ it desired to be on the violent side.

He reached over with the rolled-up magazine and flipped the latch aside. It immediately threw the window open and slithered inside, leaping upon Bill and sending him sprawling to the floor. The magazine, which he had been holding before him like a weapon, was ripped out of his fingers and tossed aside.

“What was your weapon? _Very_ amusing.” It caught his chin in a thumb and forefinger. “Pucker up, Billy boy!”

Bill kept his lips and teeth pressed firmly together. He had no intention of letting that revolting tongue inside his mouth.

“That’s not gonna do you any good!”

Using one of its clawed fingers, It shimmied a talon between his molars and pried his jaw apart, just enough to lean down push its tongue past his lips. He felt it glide over his incisors and lick at his tongue, his teeth, even at his hard palate, tasting every part of Bill that It could reach. It wasn’t so much a kiss as an invasion.

Though its tongue was slick with saliva, the flat of it was rough, like a cats, and Bill grimaced when it withdrew to lap hungrily at his lips. He was privately relieved he hadn’t been introduced to those barbs while his cock had been in Its mouth.

“Good boy.”

It allowed him to rise, then slid its arms beneath him hoisted him into the air. Bill had to grab onto Its chest In order to avoid falling to the floor. 

“Time for the tour,” It said, and Bill responded by trying to leap out of its arms like a frightened animal. It was prepared this time and simply trapped him beneath its chin, holding him close while it climbed out the window.

“No, no, no!” He kicked his legs and flailed his arms. He twisted his torso threw his head back and forth. Nothing worked. If anything, It seemed amused by his efforts.

“ _Float_ with me a while, Billy.”

There was no fire exit to descend, and even if there had been, It probably wouldn’t have utilized it. Without a word of warning, It leapt from the window.

The night air chilled Bill’s skin as the hard, unforgiving ground rushed up to meet them. Bill instinctively closed his eyes, knowing, logically, that they would survive, but still fearful that they wouldn’t. They landed with such jarring force that Bill couldn’t stop himself from letting out a bellowing cry. Someone must have heard, as a nearby hotel window lit up, but they dropped into the dark of a manhole before anyone had the opportunity to investigate.

The pungent smell that permeated the sewer invaded Bill’s nostrils. It was something between rotten eggs and a clogged-up outhouse. He winkled his nose and covered it with the sleeve of his pyjama shirt, struggling against the reflex to gag. Had it smelt this bad as a child? He couldn’t remember. Maybe an adrenaline rush had masked the terrible odour.

There was little Bill could see through the black. Pennywise’s unnaturally bright eyes only illuminated so much. There probably wasn’t much to see, however, as it _was_ a sewer.

“T-take me b-back,” he demanded. “Your ‘h-home’ f-f-fucking smells.”

It snicked at his request. “You’re getting a little big for your britches, Billy.” He felt Its teeth on the shell of his ear and shivered. It could easily rip it right off, if it so desired. “Does Billy need some lessons in manners?”

He had no interest in inciting Its wrath. He had enough injuries as it was. “No,” he whispered.

“Perhaps I will teach them anyway.” Its tongue traced the curve of his ear. “ _Later_.”

Bill hoped later could be postponed until he had fewer aches and pains. At this rate, the Losers would surely notice something was wrong with him.

…He almost wanted them to notice, though he wasn’t sure what they could do for him at this point.

At the end of the pipe, Bill could see hints of grey and green among the black, light peering in through… he didn’t know. They weren’t close enough to see the source yet, but he was watching with great anticipation as they approached. He’d never much liked the dark as a child and he didn’t much like it as an adult, either, and that was especially applicable when in the company of It. He liked being able to keep track of what It was doing.

The room they entered triggered the sensation of déjà vu. As he looked up at the grating high above them, he expected to see shredded and mangled corpses floating listlessly through the air, rotating in a slow circle, like balloons caught up in a gust of wind. He was not disappointed. It was hard to say how many bodies were floating, exactly, with how badly butchered they were. A small naked leg collided with a torso, spun briefly, and then went on its merry way.

Bill flipped over in Its arms and vomited up the liquorice and Bloody Mary’s Richie had given him.

The clown burst into cruel, noxious laughter. “Weak stomach,” was all It said, giving his belly a light stroke and continuing on through Its filthy dwelling, unperturbed by his clear distress. Bill made every effort not to look up at the ceiling again.

The ground beneath them transitioned into rotting floorboards. Bill raised his head to survey his surroundings, and slowly came to the realization that they were passing through the curtains of a stage. Beyond them was a vast field of black, and It didn’t stop walking until they had reached the sole source of light in the room. The source was somewhere high up above them, and try as he might, Bill couldn’t distinguish any details. The room was probably a lot smaller than the dark made it seem. Or, at least, Bill hoped so, because he was under the impression It didn’t have the ability to forge rooms of infinite size, and the idea that It did was quite frightening.

“Billy.”

He indicated that he was listening by grunting.

“Do you like carnivals?”

“W-what?”

“You heard me.”

Bill hesitated. He did, in fact, like carnivals, but he was apprehensive about what would happen if he said as much.

“No…?”

“I know that’s a lie.” It set him down on the ground, holding him around the waist while he steadied himself. “You like carnivals.”

“Maybe,” Bill said, growing nervous. “D-don’t do anything w-w-wei-whao!”

The darkness retracted so suddenly that Bill’s retinas throbbed with pain. He threw a forearm over his face to shield himself from the light, trying to stumble away and finding that it was present on all sides. When his eyes finally adjusted to the light, he realized he was standing in the middle of a miniature carnival. Obnoxious calliope music drifted through a cobblestone street.

Bill turned to It, utterly perplexed. It was openly delighted with its work.

“Go on, Billy!” It said. “Have a look around. Enjoy my carnival.”

There were stalls filled with prizes, a fortune teller booth, a bouncy castle, teacup rides, balloons and a shower of perpetual confetti, and a delectable assortment of fatty, sugary foods being offered by unattended stalls. The smell of caramel and salt overwhelmed the smell of the sewer. Bill found himself salivating despite himself.

He couldn’t believe how real this place looked and felt and smelt. It was incredible, simply incredible what It had the capacity to do.

“Is… is this a t-trick?” He approached an active popcorn machine and breathed in deep, almost able to taste the soft, buttery popcorn on his tongue. He swallowed. “Is this… are you m-m-making me h-hallucinate?”

It plucked a striped popcorn box off the attached counter of the machine and reached inside to fill it with the kernels, setting it in Bill’s hands once It was done.

Its smile was playful. “You tell me if it _tastes_ like a hallucination.” Bill did not like the possibility of the popcorn turning out to be maggots or something equally as disgusting. He pressed it back into its hand.

“No t-t-thank you.”

It tilted Its head at him, then proceeded to take a handful of popcorn and throw it into its mouth, crunching on it noisily. Bill had been under the impression it only ate meat.

…Which probably meant the popcorn was meat in some capacity. He was glad he hadn’t eaten it.

“Come,” It said, catching him by the wrist and pulling him along the cobblestone street. It threw the half-empty box of popcorn aside, making a beeline for the bouncy castle.

There were times where Bill wondered if It was truly as old as it claimed.

Its consideration for his comfort was completely non-existent as It threw him into the bouncy castle and crawled in after him. It sat with its legs sprawled out before it and watched while Bill awkwardly arranged his limbs until he was sitting.

“Well, B-B-Billy?”

“What?” He didn’t move a muscle. He was nauseous enough without having to navigate his way across uneven ground. “W-w-why are we h-here?”

Its brow furrowed. Whatever response It was expecting from Bill, Bill was clearly not providing.

“Do you like it?” It asked. “Do you like my carnival? I made it for you, Little Buddy. All for you. You do like it, don’t you?” Its voice was growing increasingly hostile, rising in volume. “ _I made it for you_.”

Bill guessed answering with anything but the affirmative would result in something… unfortunate. He nodded.

“Good.” And just like that, Its voice was back to normal. “Now  I…” It raised a finger, giving it a tremoring wave. “Would like _you_ to do something for _me_.”

Bill hesitated for a considerable period before answering. “What?”

“I have butter on my glove.” It brought Its hand up to the light so Bill could see the stain of yellow on its fingers. “It needs cleaning.”

Bill regarded him stupidly. “I d-don’t have any n-napkins?”

“You have a tongue.”

“I’m not- _no_.”

Pennywise laughed. “You seem to say that an awful lot, but you end up doing what I ask anyway.” He made a come-hither gesture. “Remember our deal, Little Buddy.”

Bill inhaled sharply. He thought of Richie, and Bev, and Mike, and Eddie, and Ben, and all the terrible things they would be subjected to if he didn’t oblige, and he reluctantly crawled across to where Pennywise was sitting. The calliope music beyond the bouncy castle was fluctuating wildly in pitch.

“Open,” It said, its voice playful, and Bill did. When he went to close his eyes, It said, “Those too.”

The fingers slid smoothly past his lips, rough fabric stroking the flat of his tongue. Its fingers were larger than the average humans and it only took two for Bill’s mouth to feel full and uncomfortable. Drool accumulated beneath Its fingers and dribbled over his bottom lip. Bill focused on breathing through his nose instead of the odd sensation of It exploring his mouth.

“Mmm…” It smiled at him, almost kindly. “You feel lovely… smell lovely.” It drew Its fingers back, dragging them over the slope of his bottom lip. “Did you taste the butter?”

Bill’s stomach churned. The popcorn. He had, in fact, tasted the butter, but that couldn’t be what it really was. It couldn’t produce food out of thin air, right? Of course, It could produce many other things out of thin air, but Bill had assumed it achieved that by influencing one’s mind, _not_ the world around them.

He swallowed. The taste of butter lingered. Just what was It? Where had it come from? Why was it here? He hadn’t thought about these things as a child. He’d merely wanted to enact revenge. Thinking about them now, about what it was and what it could do, about what the Losers were truly up against, made his blood turn to ice.

Whatever this being was, it had powers beyond their comprehension. And it was enamoured with Bill.

He answered Its question with a question. “Am I g-going to get s-sick?” It didn’t seem to mind.

“Of course not.” It stroked Its thumb over Bill’s chin, wiping away the line of drool there. “It is real, Little Buddy. Just like everything else here is real.” It slid Its hand around to the nape of his neck and played with his hair. “You could be comfortable down here. You could float, Billy.”

“Are you g-going to k-kill me?”

“Oh, no. A better kind of floating.”

The hand on his neck pulled him closer, Its face coming to rest against the hollow of his collarbone.

“You would like it,” It whispered. “You would like it, if you gave it a chance. You would never get old and frail and die, never return to the weeds. You would eat and sleep forever, just like me.”

Bill had no intention of ever giving it a chance. He didn’t want to end up like Beverly had, all those years ago. Dead-eyed and unresponsive, forever trapped in… wherever It had trapped her. It seemed to want him there too.

“I need t-to go h-home,” he said. “I n-need to sl-s-sleep.”

“Sleep here,” It murmured into his chest.

Bill paused. “…In a bouncy castle?”

“Would you like a bed?” Bill didn’t like the suggestiveness of Its tone.

“N-no, I want my o-own bed. The o-others will n-notice if I’m gone.”

“You’ll be returned by morning,” It said, and Its long limbs coiled around his body, palm coming to cover his eyes. “One… two…” When it uncovered them, he found himself lying upon a comfortable queen-sized bed, the exact bed he had at home, back in _England_. Looking around, he saw with increasing dread that it had managed to construct his entire bedroom, complete with radiator heater and snow falling outside the window.

His breath misted when he exhaled. It was fucking _freezing_. Wrenching himself out of Its grasp, he tore the sheets up from the mattress and slid beneath them, shivering madly while his body struggled to adjust to the abrupt drop in temperature.

It didn’t join him under the sheets. It curled itself against his back, face nestled against the top of his head.

Bill could see bright red curtains at the bottom end of the room, and beyond them, the vague outline of the sewer. It was such an odd sight that he couldn’t look at it for long without becoming disorientated.

It breathed cool air on the back of his neck. “Sleep,” It instructed, and incredibly, Bill eventually did.

Come morning, he did not awaken in the sewer.


	5. Day 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Another 7k chapter here for you!
> 
> I also want to add that my tumblr is Billonabicycle. If you want to chat or have any fic prompts or whatnot, feel free to hit me up there!

“Hey, Bill.”

Bill looked up from his cup of coffee and scrambled eggs to find Richie waving at him. He’d chosen to eat breakfast on his lonesome today, bringing his food into the lounge so he had a quiet moment to process all that had happened to him since arriving in Derry.

He hadn’t directly asked the Losers to give him some privacy, however, so he wasn’t angry that Richie didn’t oblige his desire for solitude. He even offered him a smile, gesturing for him to sit down. Bill didn’t want to give him the impression that something was wrong (even if there was indeed something wrong, and was perhaps the most ‘wrong’ thing that had ever happened to anyone living or dead).

Richie took a seat beside him.

“Sorry I d-didn’t j-join you g-guys for b-breakfast,” said Bill. He didn’t want to be interrogated on why he hadn’t been there, so he paused briefly to come up with a believable lie. “I’m f-feeling a l-l-little sick. M-must’ve been t-those cr-c-crepes or something. Street food, h-huh?”

“You want some medication or something?” asked Richie, already reaching into his jacket. He’d gone with a leather blazer today. It looked quite stunning on him. “I get sick on planes and car rides sometimes, so I keep some anti-nausea meds on hand.”

Bill shook his head. “It’s alright. It’s g-g-going away. I J-just needed to g-get some cuh-c-coffee in me.”

“Pretty unique remedy you have there,” said Richie, dropping his hand back into his lap. His gaze lingered on Bill’s placid face and Bill’s insides squirmed with anxiety. His stupid, animalistic hindbrain was trying to tell him that Richie knew about him and It, that he had come to confront Bill, that their friendship would be unsalvageable once this horrible, humiliating conversation had reached its conclusion. Bill knew none of these thoughts were true, but he didn’t seem able to banish them.

“Bill…” Richie was looking at his white-knuckled hands, now. He quickly unfurled his fingers. “Are you okay? You look a little tense. Did you have some bad dreams?”

He opened his mouth to say, ‘I’m fine’, and then closed it. No one believed people who said that. It was practically synonymous with ‘there’s something wrong, but I don’t want to/don’t know how to tell you’.

“I could be better,” he admitted. After a moment’s hesitation, he added, “Could I a-ask you s-something weird?”

“Sure, go ahead,” said Richie.

“Have you e-ever had s-s-sex with a pr-p-prostitute?”

Richie blinked at him, bewildered. “What?”

“Sex with a p-prostitute,” he said again, growing flustered. Maybe he should have used a different example. His situation was quite a bit different to providing access to one’s body for cash, though there was the same notion of being used. “I mean… you r-respect p-prostitutes, right? Because su-s-sex is just… sex…” He rubbed anxiously at his cheeks. If they got any redder, they would start to match the colour of his hair. “God, s-s-sorry. I’m not s-s-sure where I’m g-going with this.”

Richie’s eyebrows had risen so high that they almost reached his hairline. “Are you saying you slept with a prostitute?”

“N-no!” he cried. “I’m asking if _y-y-you’ve_ slept w-w-with a pro-p-prostitute!”

“Ah.” Richie stared at him, unblinking in his shock. “Well, I mean… I’ve had flings with fans before and I had lots of relationships in college. Not the same thing, obviously, but I’ve slept with a lot of people is what I’m trying to say.” He cleared his throat. “If _you’ve_ slept with a prostitute, I really don’t care. You can do whatever you want, man.”

“I-I haven’t,” said Bill, his voice growing weak. This wasn’t going at all how he had hoped. “I just... I w-wanted to kn-k-know if you r-respected them.”

Richie scoffed. “Of course I do, Bill. What kind of asshole doesn’t respect sex workers in this day and age? I’ve even advocated for their rights on my show. Got backlash for it, too.”

Bill’s shoulders slumped in relief. Sleeping with It was still a far cry from being a prostitute, but Richie’s nonchalance toward sex workers was still reassuring. It conveyed an open-mindedness that a lot of people didn’t have.

“You’re not about to tell me your prostituted your way through college, are you?”

Bill barked a laugh. “D-don’t be r-r-ridiculous. No one w-would wa-w-want to sleep with m-me, much less for m-money.” He barely managed to convince women to bed him as it was. He wasn’t the most conventionally attractive man around. A little too basic.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Richie, smiling coyly.

Bill was glad he hadn’t been in the process of taking a sip of his coffee, because he managed to choke on an intake of air. He put his mug on a nearby table so he wouldn’t drop it.

“I-it’s nothing li-l-like that, I p-promise.” He hid his burning face in the cool dip of a palm. God, why did he have to be so pale? His blushing was always painfully prominent. “I-I was just w-wondering, you know. A l-lot of p-p-people think l-less of sex works since they s-sleep with people they don’t p-particularly like.”

“Well, I’m not one of them,” said Richie, shrugging. “People can sleep with whoever they like. It’s none of my business.”

“Y-you’re too g-g-good for me,” said Bill with a laugh. The sentiment wasn’t entirely facetious. “Funny, ha-h-handsome, and you’re a l-liberal; you’re the w-whole package.”

“Shucks, Bill, you’re gonna make me blush.” Richie elbowed him lightly, grinning. “Still not sure _why_ you brought it up, but I promise you, you could sleep with every person in America and I’d still be your friend.”

“Even D-Donald Trump?”

“I’d assume you were taking one for the team in that scenario.”

Bill might have fallen a little in love with Richie Tozier in that moment. Considering the content of their conversation, it was odd juncture at which to experience such a rush of affection. Richie had grown into such a good man, better by far than Bill.

He leaned into Richie’s side, head on Richie’s shoulder. Richie buried a hand in his wiry auburn hair and stroked at his scalp. “D-don’t worry a-about why I a-a-asked,” said Bill, running a knuckle beneath a black-bagged eye. “I’ve j-just been thinking of s-s-some things.”

“I won’t ask if you don’t want me to.”

“Thanks,” he said, and Richie, true to his word, didn’t prod him for answers.

“How about we go and get some fancy cocktails?” asked Richie. His fingers grazed Bill’s ear as he tucked a few strands of hair behind it. “I know it’s early, but you seem like you could use a pick-me-up. My treat.”

“Oh, you really d-don’t have to-“ Richie cut him off before he could finish.

“Bill, I’m a TV star. I have more money than I know what to do with. Let me buy you some drinks.”

Well, if he put it like that…

Bill shrugged and nodded. Common social conventions aside, he didn’t _really_ want to turn down the opportunity to be deluged in expensive cocktails. He would enjoy the deviation from his standard Bloody Mary or red wine.

“You g-got a p-place in mind?” he asked, retrieving his coffee cup. He drank what was left, then grabbed his empty plate and headed out the lounge to return his dirty cutlery to the kitchen staff. Richie walked at his side.

“There’s a bar not far from here called the ‘The Two Kingsmen’. Sounds pretty fancy, right?”

“B-bet it o-owned by t-t-twins with the s-surname ‘Kingsman’.”

“God, I hope so,” said Richie, visibly thrilled by the idea. “My twitter followers would _love_ that.”

Bill wagged a finger at him. “I-I said it f-first, so I get to p-post it f-first!”

“Damn.” Richie scowled, but it was in a playful manner. “I get to be the first one to re-tweet it.”

“S-sounds fair. If i-it’s true, th-th-t-that is.”

The kitchen staff thanked him returning the sullied cutlery. After paying for their meals, they were on their way to ‘The Two Kingsman’.

The streets beyond the hotel were brimming with activity. Derry residents occupied almost every inch of the narrow footpath, and as Bill elbowed through the throngs of people, he was left wondering if there would be any room left for them at their destination. One could only try, right? If it ended up being too busy, there were other places they could go. He wouldn’t even mind ordering a few drinks from the hotel restaurant, if it came to that.

Fortunately, it appeared most people were sensible enough not to drink at ten thirty am.

They took a seat at the vacant bar, each grabbing a drink menu. Bill spied something called a ‘Zombie’ and was immediately intrigued. It was the first of numerous cocktails he would soon order.

They drank and chatted and feasted on the complimentary bowl of peanuts nudged toward them by the bartenders - who were, to their great dismay, not twins - and then drank some more. Bill was no lightweight when it came to alcohol (despite the fact he rarely indulged in alcohol for fear of bringing back his stutter), but on his fourth cocktail, he had to admit to being a little inebriated. Richie, who had started talking in an unconvincing cockney accent, seemed well on his way to being drunk too.

“Well, ah say sur, that ‘es one mighy fu-hyn cocka-tail you gots thar! Mind if ah take ah seep?”

Bill gave a snorting laugh and slid his half-consumed Grasshopper over to Richie’s side of the bar. The man took a generous sip.

“Mmm! Gonna haveta get meself one of these!”

“Yuh-y-you can have that one, if yuh-y-you want,” said Bill, slurring terribly. His words were barely intelligible, but Richie seemed to understand him well enough to swallow the rest of the cocktail in response.

“’M thankin’ you very much!” Richie clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to send Bill jarring into the bar. “Whoops!” he cried, much too loud. Several people trying to eat a late breakfast cast them looks of disapproval.

“’S fine,” murmured Bill, flapping a hand in dismissal. “I g-gotta piss. S-save my seat.”

“Sure thing, Billy!”

He heaved himself off his stool with some difficulty, dragging himself across the bar and into the bathroom. It took Bill several minutes of wrestling to get his zipper down enough to piss, and he briefly caught his cock in it as he did. As a small consolation, he at least managed to keep his urine secluded to the urinal.

When he was done, he tucked himself back into his trousers and washed his hand, staring dully at his reflection while he scrubbed soap into his skin. There were red lines in his sclera. He needed to drink some water or he was going to have one hell of a hangover later.

He groped blindly for the paper towel dispenser and jerked in surprise when a handful were pushed into his fingers. When he turned to yell at whoever it was that had startled him, he was greeted by the towering form of Pennywise, Its orange eyes glittering like pennies in the brightly lit room. This was the clearest picture Bill had ever received of It, and It was a great deal taller and larger than It had any right to be.

Bill swallowed down the urge to scream. Richie would come running if he did, and then It would probably make sashimi out of his skin.

“Been drinking poison, have we?” The clown reached for him and Bill took an uncoordinated, stumbling step back, smacking his elbow into the sink he’d been occupying. Undeterred, It closed the space between them and fisted a hand in the front of his shirt. 

“Whu-w-what the h-hh-hell d’you want n-now?” He was too drunk for this.

“Nothing you haven’t _repeatedly_ made clear you enjoy, Little Buddy.” The clown heaved him across the tiles. Bill didn’t even try to stop it. He hadn’t the energy or will to resist.

“C-can we re-s-s-schedule?”

“Why would I do that? _Now_ is _perfect_.”

His vision span in a slow circle as Pennywise pulled him into a stall and closed it behind them, making itself comfortable on a toilet seat. Bill wobbled dangerously in Its arms. His chin had dropped to his clavicle and his eyelids were drooping. Unpleasant a situation though this was, it wasn’t enough to stop him from being drowsy.

It drew him close, and his mouth was soft and pliant as It pressed their lips together and licked into it. It could probably taste the mint on Bill’s teeth. He wondered, idly, if Richie’s moth would taste like mint too, given he had consumed the same kind of drink, and was jarred out of these thoughts by a growl.

Could It read minds? If nothing else, it seemed able to sense what he was thinking, and It didn’t seem happy that he wasn’t thinking about It.

“You are mine, Bill Denbrough,” It said into his mouth. That was the first time It had said his full name. He kind of wished it had happened in a different context, like during their final confrontation. Maybe while he was impaling It with a spear.

“I n-never agreed to that,” he slurred. He probably should have been more frightened, all things considered, but intoxicated men generally were known for their balls of steel. It was why drunken brawls were such a common occurrence. Most people wouldn’t dare throw a punch at someone twice their size while sober, but after a few drinks, anything seemed achievable.

When it yanked his trousers down around his thighs, it was with more force than necessary. It dragged him into its lap and tucked him against Its neck, Its palms resting on the small of his back, a cool presence. Bill braced himself for the incoming intrusion and was not disappointed, almost yelping aloud as those slick, slimy appendages entered him with a painful force. His legs shook as he struggled to adjust to the collective girth of It.

If It allowed him to leave after this, he was going to have a prominent limp.

The toilet seat groaned under Its significant weight. It rocked him in Its lap, panting by his ear. The pants sounded vaguely like ‘mine, mine, mine’, and maybe that’s what they were, but Bill was too distracted by the arrival of that familiar rapturous pleasure to care.

He hadn’t the inhibitions to remain quiet this time. His moans and whimpers reverberated off the tiles, ringing in his ears, and he did not care.

He did not care until someone stepped into the bathroom, that was.

The door swung shut behind the new arrival with a click. Soft footsteps approached the urinal and a zipper was pulled down. Bill had just enough presence of mind to press his lips tight together to prevent any sounds from escaping. He was drunk, but he still recognized a compromising position when he was in one.

“Bill?”

His blood cooled so suddenly that it was almost as though it had vacated his body.

“Bill, are you in here?”

Bill pressed his face hard into Its chest, desperate not to make a sound. It thrust into him with increased enthusiasm.

When It spoke to him, it was directly beside his ear, in a whisper. “Answer your friend, Billy, or I’ll answer for you.”

God. Fucking. Damn it. There weren’t nearly enough swear words in the English vocabulary to convey his distress.

He took a steadying breath. “I’m s-shitting, Tozier.” It was stroking at his prostate, _deliberately_ , and his fingers and toes involuntarily curled. He had to snap his teeth over a groan. “I-I-I-I’ll be o-out s-soon.” At least being drunk and a stutterer made it easy to excuse the fluctuating quality of his voice.

“You okay in there?” slurred Richie. Bill could practically hear his nose wrinkling. “D’ya want me to get some water?”

“M’fine!” he replied, a touch too loud. It had licked a stripe over the hollow of his throat.

“Well… okay, man. I’ll be at the bar.” A faucet ran, followed by the soft crunch of paper towels being sullied. “Give a holler if you need me. I’ll probably hear you.”

“O-okay,” he said, waiting with held breath until Richie had exited the bathroom. He was so relieved when Richie was finally gone that he could have cried. Thank the turtle for small mercies.

It resumed thrusting at a languid pace. “They’ll find out eventually.”

“N-no they w-won’t,” mumbled Bill, forehead against Its chest.

“They will.” It licked at the shell of his ear. “You should have pride about lying with a being such as myself. I can give you wealth. I can give you immortality. I can make you happy.”

“I’d r-rather be u-unhappy.” And he _was_ unhappy. It was hard to conceive of ever being happy with _It_.

“Doesn’t this feel good?” It asked, and It stroked at that wonderful place inside him hard enough to make him gasp. “I can have you feel this _all_ the time.”

Bill arched his back, belly rubbing against Its midsection. I was ridiculous how tempting it was to say _yes, please, please do make me feel this all the time_ , but Bill wasn’t yet far gone enough to yield to that urge.

“Come on, Little Buddy.” One of Its palms slid down the slope of his back and squeezed at the ample flesh of his ass. Its words were a breath against his jaw. “I know what humans are like. I know you want this.”

Bill moaned aloud as completion claimed him. He trembled from head to toe, his cock twitching between their bodies. It hadn’t even needed to touch it.

He slumped against Its immense torso, utterly spent. His sweaty head clung to the fabric of its suit. That familiar buzz had engulfed his mind. He didn’t care when its appendages retreated, and nor when It tilted his head up and licked at his lips, and jaw, and neck, descending as low as it could reach without jostling him too badly.

“You would have made a tasty meal,” It murmured distractedly, before roughly extracting Bill from Its lap and manoeuvring him so he was the one sitting on the toilet seat. Bill groggily stared up at It, eyes half-lidded. The combination of the alcohol and the afterglow of sex made him too spent to do much else.

“You have two more days to decide to come willingly, Little Buddy.” It smiled fondly down at him, Its thumb sweeping over his lips. “Two more days, and then I start on your friends. But if you come with me, I’ll let them live.”

The moment what It was saying registered, Bill’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Wh-w-what? Y-you…”

What if they didn’t remember in two days? What if they weren’t ready to face It? If It came for them, there was a real possibility they would die.

“Y-y-you can’t,” he said weakly.

“It’s your choice, Little Buddy.” It made a bowing retreat from the stall, closing the door behind Itself.

Fighting through the haze of alcohol and bliss, Bill proceeded to panic.

Two days. _Two days_. That was barely any time at all! How could they possibly be ready in two days? Bill still only remembered their encounter in bits and pieces, and Mike had said they needed to remember _everything_ in order to face It again. Furthermore, what the hell was Bill going to say if It brought up the fact they had fucked, _repeatedly_? Would the Losers still regard him as a leader, as someone worth fighting for, if they knew what he had been doing? He was sick with anxiety, pushing himself off the toilet seat to vomit into the bowl. He brought up most of the cocktail he had just been drinking.

It took him some minutes before he had the strength to grab a handful of toilet paper and clean himself up with it. Legs shaking, he pulled his trousers back into place and did up his zipper, stumbling out of the stall to wash his mouth out in a sink. He made himself as presentable as possible before returning to the bar. He couldn’t help, however, the pallid shade of his skin and the anxious lines etched beneath his eyes, and Richie seemed to notice.

“Shit,” Richie murmured, placing a handful of notes onto the bar. “Were you vomiting in there? Fuck, sorry. Didn’t know you were such a lightweight!”

Despite his panic, the corner of Bill’s mouth twitched. “F-fuck off, Tozier. I could d-d-drink you under t-the ta-t-table.”

“And now you’re having delusions!” Richie cried, sliding off his stool to throw an arm around Bill’s shoulders. “Come on, let’s get you home and get some water in you.”

Bill shook his head. “W-we need to s-see M-Mike,” he said, reaching into his pocket for his phone. In case of emergency, all the Losers had exchanged numbers. It was the fullest Bill’s contact list had ever been. “I’ll g-give him a cuh-c-call.”

“Why?” Richie tightened his grip, enabling Bill to walk without sliding to the floor. “What’s wrong? Did something happen while you were pissing?”

“Y-yeah,” said Bill. He flicked through his phone, squinting through the dark of the bar, searching for Mike among his contacts. His fingers slipped repeatedly off the bottom of the screen. Panic might have made him more alert, but he was still highly inebriated. 

“Well?” Richie pressed. “What was it?”

Bill didn’t answer. He’d finally managed to select the correct contact and pressed his phone to his ear, listening to it ring. Once, twice… Richie was guiding him out of the bar, his grip sliding down to Bill’s waist… three, four… they had to elbow their way through swarms of people, heading for a nearby bench… five, six…

“Bill, you’re kind of freaking me out,” said Richie, lowering him to the bench. Bill might have tried to alleviate his concern had Mike not chosen that exact moment to answer his phone.

“Hey, Bill. What’s up?”

“Mike!” Bill cried in relief. The sound of Mike’s voice brought with it so much comfort and reassurance that he found himself grinning. “Mike, we n-need to muh-eet up. We- we need to s-start p-p-planning.”

There was a pause.

“You had another run in with It, I take it?”

“Yeah,” said Bill. He glanced at Richie, whose brows were knitted tight together. He must have overheard. “Yeah, I d-did. We have t-t-two days b-before it c-comes for us.” Now Richie was trying to mouth something to him, but Bill didn’t have the mental capacity to decipher whatever it was Richie was saying. “That’s wh-w-what It s-said to me.”

“Shit.” A sharp inhale. “Okay, I’ll call the others and we can talk at my place. I have some stuff you need to be made aware of.”

“We’ll t-take a taxi th-t-there.”

“Okay.” A beat of silence. “Bill, you need to be very careful over the next two days. It seems to be fixating on you.”

“Y-yeah,” he said, a touch wry. “I h-had noticed.”

“I’m just saying, Bill. Be careful.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, sounding apologetic. It wasn’t Mike’s fault he wasn’t aware of Bill’s strange dynamic with It. “See you s-soon, Mike.”

“See you soon. Oh, and I’ll have some toast ready. You sound drunk.”

“That’s b-because I am. T-thanks.”

They hung up at the same time. Bill pocketed his phone and looked at Richie, who was flapping his hands in a desperate bid for his attention.

“Jesus Christ!” Richie bellowed. The volume of his voice made Bill jump. “What the hell happened while you were in the bathroom, Bill!?” he demanded, his hands coming to hold Bill by the shoulders. Bill couldn’t tell if he was trying to steady him or keep him in place for the duration of his freak-out. Maybe both. “Did It attack you in there? Are you okay!?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he said, and he wasn’t sure _why_ he said it, because he didn’t think he had felt less okay in his entire life.

“I can’t tell you’re lying, Bill.” Richie looked him up and down, making no effort to hide the fact he was searching for injuries. Bill self-consciously tugged the collar of his jacket up to cover the bruises on his neck. It would be a few more days before they faded entirely.

“I’m o-okay,” he said again, brushing Richie’s hands away so he could stand from the bench. He tottered his way to the edge of the footpath with Richie at his heels.

“I know you aren’t and I really fucking wish you wouldn’t act like I don’t know,” Richie said quietly, the hurt audible in his voice. “I know I joke around a lot – that’s just how I deal with stress– but I can tell when something’s wrong, Bill. You’ve been acting weird since you got here.” This comment was punctuated by a short period of silence. Bill didn’t look at Richie, staring down at the asphalt. “I’m not asking you divulge your secrets or whatever, but you don’t _have_ to be okay around me, Bill. That’s all.”

How did Richie always know what Bill needed to hear?

A swell of appreciation for Richie strangled Bill’s ability to speak. He swiped his palms across his eyes, preventing tears from gathering.

“If you’re not okay, just say it,” finished Richie, coming to stand beside him.

Bill swallowed down the lump in his throat. “It’s b-been a c-c-confusing few d-days for me,” he admitted.

“Yeah?” Richie slid an arm around his shoulders, cradling him to his chest. “Well, you won’t be confused for long. We’ll go after that clown fucker and kill it, then we’ll do something nice.” Richie rubbed a thumb into his shoulder. “Maybe a road trip through Australia. We got the money for it. Just buy a winnebago and off we go.”

Bill laughed wetly. “Y-you’d wanna go on a r-r-road trip w-with me? I’m b-boring.”

“You’re shitting me, right? You’re the most interesting guy I know.” He pinched Bill’s cheek. “Plus, you’re adorable.”

“I thought E-Eddie was the a-a-adorable one.”

“No, he’s the cute one. _You’re_ the adorable one.”

“S-stop being nice,” said Bill with a playful scowl. “Y-you’re gonna m-make me c-c-cry like a baby.”

“Aw.” Richie tried to pinch his cheek again, but Bill twisted out of the way before he could. He settled for ruffling Bill’s already dishevelled hair. “Sorry, Billy babe, it’s impossible not to be nice to you.”

“S-since you’re f-f-feeling so generous, do you mi-m-mind hailing a c-cab?” He was never very good at doing it himself.

“What fo- oh! Right. Mike’s place.”

Richie waved frantically at every passing taxi until a vacant one pulled to the gutter. They were flinging themselves into the back before it had even stopped. Or Bill was, rather, and dragged Richie in after him, eager to get to Mike’s place and make arrangements for the final confrontation. The sooner they started planning, the better prepared they would be. It had a considerable, if not infinite arsenal It could use against them and they needed to be ready for anything it could throw at them. He doubted It would hesitate to use the full extent of its power this time around.

The acrid scent of cigarette smoke was strong in the polyester of the taxi seats. Bill cracked open a window to make the air more breathable before making himself comfortable against the glass. Richie sat next to him, close enough that their knees knocked together. He was a large, comforting presence against Bill’s side.

It occurred to Bill that he did not know what they would, or should do when (not _if_ ; they _couldn’t_ lose) It was defeated. Could It be killed, or was It as eternal as It claimed? It might subsist elsewhere even if they managed to kill Its physical vessel, and then what? There was a chance It would come back somehow, some day, and they would probably be long gone by then.

A very small part of him wondered if he even truly wanted It dead, and It was a part of him that he smothered, reminding himself that It had killed his brother, had killed hundreds, if not thousands of children in Derry, and _needed_ to die so the remaining children would be safe.

“You’re looking pensive,” said Richie, and Bill glanced at him.

“C-can It really be k-killed?” He wasn’t sure why he was asking Richie. He wouldn’t be any more knowledgeable than Bill himself was. “It’s not h-human. We do-d-don’t know a-anything about it.”

Richie scoffed. “I wouldn’t say we don’t know _anything_. Give us a little credit!”

“N-not enough, t-then.”

“I’ll all work out in the end,” Richie assured him. “Even if he we can’t kill It, we could… I dunno, send it back to wherever the hell it came from?”

“The asshole dimension,” Bill mumbled, and Richie laughed.

“Yeah, perfect. We’ll send it there,” said Richie, full of an enthusiasm that Bill lacked. “Hopefully Mike has a portal laying around. Or better yet: a ghost buster vacuum!”

“I d-don’t think it’s a ghost.”

“You’d look cool, thought.”

Bill failed to stifle a giggle with his jacket sleeve. With each humorous remark Richie made, his tension and anxiety eased. He smiled at Richie with all the warmth of a man looking at their saviour, and when Richie smiled back, Bill could see a similar warmth in his.

It took roughly twenty minutes for them to reach Mike’s place. Upon exiting the vehicle, Mike hopped off his veranda to greet them.

“Ben and Bev are here,” he told them, guiding them up the steps and into his living room. “Eddie’ll be here soon. He was taking a walk around that river we used to swim in as kids when I called him, so he’s a little further away.”

Strangely, when Bill spotted Ben and Beverly sitting on the couch, legs touching, it didn’t bother him in the slightest. That might have been the alcohol, though. Alcohol tended to make Bill more mellow.

He approached the couch and flopped into a vacant cushion, head lulling back. The sedative quality of the alcohol was making him tired.

“Are you drunk too, Richie?” asked Mike.

“A little,” admitted Richie, joining Bill on the couch. He had to squeeze into a corner. “I’m handling it better than Bill, though. Just look at him. It’s almost sad.”

“Fuck you,” Bill muttered. Richie laughed.

“Both of you are getting toast,” said Mike from the kitchen doorway, as exasperated as a parent with misbehaving children. “You’d best appreciate the strawberry jam on it. I made it myself.” It didn’t take Mike more than a few minutes to return with the promised toast slathered in strawberry jam. He handed both of them a tall glass of water before allowing them to select a slice.

While they were chomping down on toast and listening to Ben, Bev and Mike make casual conversation, Eddie arrived and seated himself on a chair Mike brought in from the kitchen. With Eddie there, their preparations could begin.

Mike rose to stand at the front of their semi-circle. The room descended in an immediate dead silence, solemn in its intensity.

Sobriety was gradually returning to Bill. He placed his half-eaten toast aside and straightened in his seat, his gaze on Mike, rapt with anticipation.

“We have two days to get ready for the fight,” Mike told them, receiving a series of gasps and groans in response.

“Wait, when did that happen?” asked Ben, bemused.

“Today,” said Mike, “Doesn’t matter how. What matters is we have two days and I know everything you need to know.”

“I don’t know if I remember everything yet,” Ed muttered, appearing anxious. “Do we still need to remember everything?”

“Yes, that is imperative,” said Mike. “But you _will_ remember everything before you fight it. I promise you will.”

Bill hoped so. He remembered quite a bit, but some of it was vague and flittering, impossible to recall for more than a few seconds at a time. He remembered, at least, that they had beaten It into submission with whatever weapons they’d had on hand. That seemed a most pertinent memory for what they were about to do.

“S-so, wh-w-what’re we m-missing?” asked Bill. “Is there s-some pa-p-particular way we h-have to b-beat it?”

Richie muttered something about ‘aiming for its melon’ under his breath.

“Yes, actually,” said Mike, folding his hands behind his back. “And I don’t mean _physically_ beat it. It’s not enough to batter It – we have to initiate a ritual so It will be weak enough to die.”

“Great, a ritual,” said Beverly, her tone wry. “If we have to sacrifice a virgin, I volunteer Richie.”

Richie slapped a hand to his breast, mock offended. “How could I _possibly_ still have my chastity after growing up around as voluptuous a woman as Mrs-“

“If you say my mother, I’ll hit you,” threatened Eddie.

Richie shut his mouth with a clack of teeth, raising his hands in surrender.

“There’s no need for virgins,” Mike assured them, the edges of his mouth twitching into a reluctant smile. “It’s called the Ritual of Chud, and its performed by latching onto It in Its territory.”

“It’s territory?” Bev looked apprehensive. “You mean-?”

“The place you went, yes.” Mike paused. “You don’t have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable, but do you remember how you got there, Bev?”

Bev swallowed, her throat bobbing. The lines around her eyes seemed deeper as she spoke. “It opened Its mouth and made me look inside. There were bright lights, and then I saw images, and blackness. I remember it clearly.” Her voice dropped in volume. “Too clearly.”

Ben reached over and gave her shoulders a squeeze. “So one of us has to voluntarily subject ourselves to that?” he asked.

“I-I’ll do it,” said Bill.

All eyes turned to him.

“Bill-!” started Richie, reproachful, but Mike interrupted him.

“I figured it would be you, Bill,” he said. “You started this twenty-seven years ago and now you’re going to end it. You’ll strike the final blow.”

Bill nodded. He’d always know it would be him and It, in the end, and he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. It was revenge for his brother, for the children of Derry, for their lost childhoods – and in some odd way, it was an act of intimacy.

“That’s w-what I’m h-hoping will h-happen, anyway,” said Bill. “I c-can’t p-p-promise it’ll go as s-s-smoothly as we p-plan.”

Richie troubled his bottom lip with his teeth, appearing to want to protest.

“S-stop looking at me l-like I’m about to d-die, Richie.” He cupped Richie’s face in a hand, bringing their foreheads together. “Y-you s-said it y-yourself: everything w-will work o-out in the e-end.”

Richie leaned into his touch. “You’d better not die, or I’ll make a public spectacle of myself by punching your grave stone.”

“I won’t die,” Bill murmured, attempting to impart comfort in his soft voice. He was confident this was true. Even if they were to lose – which was very unlikely – It had other purposes for him in mind.

What those purposes might be made Bill shudder.

“So,” said Eddie, and everyone turned to look at him. “How, uh. How do you do this ‘ritual’? Is there some kind of mystical spiel Bill needs to know?”

“No,” answered Mike, to Bill great relief. He would have had a hell of a time trying to remember a chant. “No,” he said again, tapping two fingers over his lips. “You just need to imagine you’re latching onto its tongue. Once you’ve done that, it shouldn’t be too hard to dominate It in the mental battlefield.”

“Sounds kinky,” said Richie. Bill winced.

“Don’t be gross,” Beverly scowled, reaching across Ben’s lap to smack in Richie in the side. “You’re going to make Bill ill.”

Bill said nothing in response Beverly’s words, watching his knees while the Losers’ continued to converse, wondering if ‘kinky’ would, in fact, be an accurate description of his and Its final fight. After everything that had happened, it didn’t seem that farfetched to suggest there would be sexual overtones to their final encounter. If it came to that, he hoped the Losers wouldn’t be able to tell what was going on.

Only when a great BANG rattled the kitchen did Bill look up. Or jump up, rather, his senses on high alert. He was inebriated enough that he stumbled over his own feet on his way to investigate, catching himself on a trembling Eddie, who wrapped an arm around his waist to prevent him from falling.

They piled into the kitchen one after the other, and drunk as he was, Bill was the last to see that the refrigerator door had been flung open and the contents spilled across the linoleum. With a grimace of disgust and alarm, he realized that there was a disembodied head sitting on the bottom rack of the fridge. Its hair was dirty blonde and eyes a stunning hazel. Its face was pale and tinged with blue. It gazed at them without comprehension, its pale mouth twisted into a broad smile.

It was Stan. There was no one else it could be.

He heard Ben gag and Eddie whimper. Richie stepped in front of them, as though to shield them from the sight.

“Well hey there, guys!” the head bellowed. “’Bout time I showed up, huh? Just wanted to let you guys know it’s nice and toasty down here in hell!”

Bill fought his way to the front of the Losers, standing beside Richie to watch the head speak.

“Why don’t you come and join me? I’ve got a place for each and every one of you.” His empty gaze settled on Bill. “Well... maybe not _you_.”

“G-get out,” Bill snarled.

“Didn’t you want to see you friend, B-B-Billy boy?” The head burst into a fit of giggles. “Of course, he didn’t want to see _you_! I don’t think he ever did forgive you for making him confront me as a kid. How sad.”

Bill’s jaw clenched.

“Fuck off,” hissed Richie, stepping over the mess of perishables scattered across the tiles to reach for the fridge door.

“Sure thing!” said the head, grinning so wide that the edges of its lips almost touched its ears. “Don’t want to overstay my welcome! And neither do you. That’s why I’m giving you two days.”

Its glazed eyes stared openly at Bill. “Two days, Little Buddy, then I’m coming for you. All of you. All of you will-!”

Richie slammed the door shut before It could continue, planting his back up against it, breathing hard. His chest trembled with each inhale.

No sounds came from the fridge, but no one attempted to open it again.

With the help of the other Losers, Mike transferred the mess It had left on his floor to a garbage bin and informed them that he would go grocery shopping later that week. They left the kitchen, uneasy and murmuring amongst themselves. Bill could feel the perspiration on Eddie’s skin as the man pressed closer to him. He swiped a hand over Eddie’s bicep to comfort him and received a wavering smile in response.

They left the farm shortly after the ordeal with the head. None of them wanted to linger.

Mike followed them back to the hotel and booked himself a room, then took Bev and Ben into the restaurant for an early dinner. Eddie retired to his room, telling them he’d lost his apetite. Bill had intended to lay down in bed and watch some television to get his mind off the coming fight, but he was accosted by Richie before he could enter his room.

“Come to my room,” Richie said, already coiling a hand around Bill’s elbow and pulling him down the hall. Bill let himself be guided away. “We can watch some rom-coms and relax. They restocked my bar, so there’s even chocolate if you want it.”

Bill shrugged. “S-sounds good.” He didn’t particularly want to be alone in his room, anyway. That might encourage It to pay him another visit, and he was still sore from their earlier encounter. With sobriety had come a dull ache at the base of his spine and a weakness in his legs. His thighs trembled minutely with every step he took, and he was sure Richie noticed. Though if he did, he didn’t say anything about it.

They lay down in bed and put on ‘Love Actually’, which Richie cited as his favorited movie to watch on Christmas.

“But it i-isn’t Christmas,” said Bill.

“It’s still a special occasion,” said Richie, folding his arms up behind his head.

They ate through the contents of Richie’s bar while they watched. Bill had little appetite to speak of, but he ate because he knew he needed to. One couldn’t subsist on a few slices of toast and galleons of alcohol, after all.

It seemed to be one of those days where everything made Bill emotional. The touching conclusion to the movie brought tears to his eyes.

“Cry baby,” murmured Richie, and Bill sniffed and swatted him over the nose. His eyes looked a little glassy too, the hypocrite.

They put on ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ next, and followed that with ‘10 Things I Hate About You’. Even after three movies, however, it was only seven o’clock, and Bill wasn’t nearly tired enough to go to sleep. He stretched out on Richie’s mattress, chin on his clavicle while Richie scrolled through the list of available movies.

Spent on romantic comedies, they decided to watch the latest season of Game of Thrones. Bill watched it at a causal pace so he had episodes to watch during hiatus’, but Richie either caught every episode on the night it aired or recorded it. In the middle of one episode, he did an impressive impression of the leader of the Lannister house, Tywin.

(It was slightly attractive, though Bill had no intention of ever saying as much. The clown must have giving him an unusual taste in men, which was surprising considering Bill’s lacklustre interest in men prior to Its intervention.)

By the time night arrived, they had finished a sizable amount of season six.

He went to rise to return to his room, but Richie caught him by the arm before he could vacate the bed.

“Spend the night here,” he said, and Bill hesitated.

“That’s p-pretty g-gay, Tozier,” he said, jokingly. He was afraid of misinterpreting Richie’s intentions. Was this platonic or romantic? With Richie, it was always hard to tell. He tended to ride that fence and tip over at his own convenience.

“Yeah well… _I’m_ pretty gay,” murmured Richie, his voice rapidly losing conviction. It was clear he was afraid Bill would reject him.

Bill slid back into the bed, right into Riche’s chest, and proceeded throw the blankets over them. There was really no need for them, hot as it was, but he felt secure under the blankets with Richie.

Richie adjusted their bodies so he was spooned to Bill’s back, his arms wrapped loose around Bill’s midsection. He rested his face beside Bill’s ear and sighed.

“I just want to smother you in affection,” he mumbled against Bill’s ear. “Wanted to do that as kids, too, but I could see you making goo-goo eyes at Beverly all the time.”

“I was t-that o-obvious?”

“Yeah, man. You might as well have been screaming ‘I have a boner for Beverly Marsh’ every time she was in your vicinity. It was _hilarious_.”

“I’m s-surprised you d-didn’t do that f-for me,” said Bill dryly. He recalled Richie screaming ‘penis’ in public at least once or twice, unhindered by shame. Juvenile and unfiltered; that had always been Richie’s kind of humour.

“It wouldn’t have been funny,” mumbled Richie. He pressed a chaste kiss to Bill’s neck, and Bill grimaced, wiggling away.

“Not n-now,” he whispered. “Let’s j-just sleep.”

“Sorry,” Richie whispered back, his voice frantic. “Fuck, sorry, I should have asked-!”

“Calm d-down. I’m just t-tired, that’s all.” He didn’t think he could tolerate more intimacy after the morning he’d had with It. He was too worn.

Richie nodded against his back. “Would it be inappropriate for me to ask if you’ve been with a guy before?”

“I…” Bill honestly didn’t know how to answer that. Whatever ‘It’ was, the human concepts of gender didn’t seem to apply to it. “Not really…?”

“Guess we’ll have some stuff to talk about later down the line, then,” murmured Richie. “I mean, if you ever decide you want to. You don’t have to or anything. I’m not the kind of guy that would ever pressure someone into something like that, and you can always tell me to fuck off if-”

Bill twisted around to press a sloppy kiss to Richie’s cheek. “Stop p-panicking and go to sleep.”

“Okay. Okay. I’m sleeping.”

“You’re talking.”

Richie gave a few very loud, very fake snores in response, but it wasn’t long before his breathing evened out and it became apparent he had started to relax.

It was too warm for Bill to drift off immediately. He didn’t dare take of any clothes, however, for fear Richie would see the bandages.

He stared at what little he could see of a painting through the moonlight from the window, counting the waves in the vast ocean it depicted.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…

Stunning orange eyes blinked into being in the corner of the room, and Bill’s heart raced. They watched him, unmoving, unblinking, all through the night, and disappeared by morning.

Bill hadn’t slept a wink.


	6. Day 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a little shorter than the last two, but still 4k+! So, not too bad. I hope you all enjoy the drama~! Things get quite heavy in this one.

The next morning, Bill tasked Bev, Ben, and Richie with gathering weapons for their final confrontation with It. He provided them with two lists: one that sought everything from hedge cutters to mace, and another that told them where they could find the items. When they left, he turned to Eddie and Mike and directed them to a nearby depot to buy sturdy rope and torches. With Eddie’s asthma and Mike’s fatigue, Bill didn’t particularly want either of them running around town.

That left Bill on his own, and Bill decided he would go for a jog to wake himself up. There was, of course, the ulterior motive of finding It and perhaps bartering with It, or better yet, intimidating It into surrendering, but he wouldn’t be disappointed should he manage to somehow avoid the clowns company (assuming that was possible).

Bill stripped down to a loose shirt and khakis shorts before stepping outside. It was a beautiful sunny day, absent of clouds and wind, and he would overheat in anything thicker. His vibrantly coloured outfit was something of an affront to fashion, but cream khakis and a striped pink button-up shirt had been the only jogging-appropriate clothes he could find that completely obscured his bandages and fading bruises from view. He would just have to ignore the bemused looks he would undoubtedly receive from passers-by.

He crossed the street and started a speed walk down the footpath that would bring him to the park. This early in the morning, it was populated by people heading into work, many of which were tired and harried and bumped into Bill as they passed. The morning rush was still in progress, but it wouldn’t be long before everyone had reached their destination and the flood of patrons would begin. Bill would be long gone before then, fortunately.

The park had a surprising number of occupants when he finally arrived. Families had set themselves up near the playground, sitting on picnic blankets and in warm patches of grass, perhaps worried there wouldn’t be any room for them if they arrived at a more sensible time. Bill couldn’t blame them. He knew now that school had already ended, and children would soon start to bore of staying home and demand that their parents take them out to play. It was a demand Bill had rarely needed to make of his own parents when he’d been a child. His parents had been happy to let him go out on his own provided he told them where he was going (which was something they ceased bothering with following Georgie’s death). As long as he had returned in time for dinner, he’d been able to spend all day playing outside with his friends. The parents of this day and age would never permit such a thing. They were protective and paranoid, not entirely unlike Eddie’s mother had been, though even Eddie’s mother had permitted Eddie to leave the house at long intervals with enough convincing.

Maybe that was a good thing, though. A little frustrating for children, perhaps, but remaining indoors kept them safe. The children of Derry were more in need of that safety than the children of any other town in New England.

Bill passed behind the playground to enter one of the quieter sections of the neighbourhood, peering into alleyways he thought It might use as a vantage point. When he didn’t find It occupying any dark corners, he proceeded down a street that would lead him to the barrens.

It was a little odd to be voluntarily seeking It out after the terrifying night he’d had of being watched by It from the corner of Richie’s room. He couldn’t imagine It would be in a good mood after that. But Bill wanted to speak to It, because he had some things he urgently wanted to say, things that It _needed_ to hear.

The further into the quiet suburbia of Derry Bill went, the fewer people he saw. There was nary a car when he finally reached the bridge overlooking the barrens. He peered down into the wilderness and marvelled at how much thicker and beautiful it had become over his twenty-year absence, and since he hadn’t had a good look at this section of the barrens during his last visit, he decided he would spend the rest of his jog among the trees.

He and Eddie had often played pretend in this forest. They’d liked to imagine themselves hunters as they hunched low in the grass, avoiding vicious tigers, lions, and leopards lurking among the trees and bushes. Their sticks had been spears and they had clutched them in shaking, white-knuckled hands. They’d had to be careful or they would become the prey. Such games had generally ended with him and Eddie slaying the beasts and talking animatedly about where they would hang the pelts (pelts being something they had only started to incorporate into their play after a history lesson on Native Americans and the fur and leather trade).

As he hopped over the bridge to enter the forest, he could almost picture himself and Eddie slinking through the trees, their dirty sneakers crunching over a thick blanket of summer detritus, their shirts catching on tree branches and the gnarled limbs of bushes. Eddie had often forgotten his hypochondria while playing in the forest. He’d been a normal little boy, in those moments.

Bill was careful not to lose his footing as he descended the hill, using trees to steady his path down. Fragments of bark clung to his skin and clothes. Half-way down he realized there was a spider on his arm and let out a bellowing scream, stumbling the rest of the way to the bottom.

The spider was gone when he went to fling it off. He ended up patting himself down four times before he was satisfied the spider hadn’t hidden itself in the folds of his clothes.

Bill hated spiders. Insects in general were disgusting, but he held a marked contempt for spiders.

Bill went to wipe his dirty palms off on his shorts and felt a tickling sensation at the nape of his neck. _The spider_ , his mind yelled at him.

He screamed at the top of his lungs and flailed all four of his limbs, going cartwheeling into the forest floor. He only realized that the _thing_ on his neck hadn’t been a spider when he heard thundering laughter from behind him. He scrambled to his feet as fast as he could, turning to glare at a highly amused Pennywise.

“Really n-not that funny,” he muttered, brushing leaves and dirt from his shirt. He’d managed to get a twig stuck in his collar. “J-juvenile gag. I e-expect b-b-better from you.”

“Do you really?” Its lips pulled back to unveil a sharp-toothed smile. “It is nice to know you expect things from me, Little buddy.”

“And you’re d-d-disappointing all my e-expectations, f-y-i.”

“Not all of them,” It said slyly.

Bill glowered at It. “I know you’re t-trying to be _c-cute_ , but I saw you in my r-room last n-night and I’m pretty fu-fuh-fucking p-pissed that you kept me from s-s-sleeping.” He gestured to the puffy bags beneath his eyes. “I f-feel like sh-s-shit, thanks to y-you.”

Its smile dropped into a frown. “That was not your room.”

“Fine, R-Richie’s room, but-!”

“I watched you to make sure he would not touch you.” It waved a finger at him. “I have peered into that boy’s thoughts, and he likes you as much as I.”

“He’s less of a d-dick about it,” said Bill, his tone dry. Its irises flashed a startling red. 

“He should not touch what is mine. I claimed you.”

“I’m not yours-!”

“You reciprocated,” It hissed. “I felt it. I felt you want _Me_.”

Bill closed the space between them in one leaping step, shoving himself into Its personal space. To his great surprise, it did not attack; It instead retracted minutely, wincing like a chastised pet.

“You k-killed my little brother,” he said coolly. It withdrew even further, seeming small in its unease. “You killed a-a-all those k-kids, too, and then you k-killed Stan. He’d still be a-a-alive if n-not for you t-t-terrorizing him as a k-kid!” The more he reflected on what It had done, the angrier he grew. His voice rose to a furious roar. “And _now_ you’re th-t-threatening to kill my f-friends if I don’t give m-myself over to you! How could I ever want s-something that does that!?”

Its lips twitched, almost a tremble. One of Its hands reached out and slid tentatively over Bill’s forehead and into his hair, pushing it back against his scalp. “I have done good by you,” It rumbled. “I have not eaten you.”

“That’s the bare m-minimum,” snapped Bill, but he made no attempt to push It away. This was the most receptive to criticism It had ever been. It was at this juncture that Bill hoped to dissuade it from harming his friends _without_ necessitating Bill’s surrender. “You should t-try h-harder to be g-good,” he pressed.

Its hand dropped away from his hair, moving to cup Bill through his shorts. “You can be made to feel better.”

“That won’t f-fix anything,” he breathed, but already he was bucking into Its hand.

“But it will make you feel better.”

It guided him to the forest floor, coaxing him to sit between its long legs, his back to its chest. Bill didn’t resist, knowing he would end up down there eventually even if he did.

“You ne-n-need to leave my fru-f-friends alone,” he murmured, watching as Pennywise’s nimble fingers made short work of his zipper. It palmed him into hardness.

“I will,” It said, speaking against the top of his head, strings of drool soaking into his wiry hair. They were startlingly cool. Everything about It always was. “ _If_ you accept my offer.”

“W-would that s-stop you from eating the c-ch-c-children here?”

It grunted. “I need to eat.”

“E-eat something e-else. E-eat something that i-isn’t sa-s-sapient.”

It delved beneath the waistband of his boxers, gripping him in the velvet of its glove. A moan tumbled out of Bill’s throat. They had barely even begun and he was already painfully hard and sensitive.

“I need human fear for sustenance.” The tip of Its nose dragged through his hair. It could probably smell the mint shampoo he’d used that morning. “And I need you.”

“W-why?” Bill asked, because despite everything that had occurred between them, he still didn’t understand why It wanted him. “What’s so s-s-special about m-me?”

“You are an experience,” It replied in a murmur. “One I would like to extend.”

“Th-t-that doesn’t t-tell me m-much.”

The beast stroked his arousal in a languid fashion. “I love you,” It said, and Bill choked on an intake of air. He was shocked beyond speech, his eyes wide, his body yielding.

It couldn’t have said what he had just heard, right? It couldn’t have said that, because It didn’t understand the concept of love. It knew possession and obsession and nothing else. 

“I love you,” It said again.

The declaration rang hard in Bill’s head. “No,” he whispered, scarcely breathing.

It dragged its lips down the back of his head, nestling its face against the junction between his neck and shoulder. “I love you,” It said yet again, so cruelly casual. They were the last words he’d ever wanted to hear from It. In Its mouth, they were _sullied_.

It took Bill several long, tense seconds to find his voice. “No you don’t,” he choked out, grasping Its hand by the wrist and extracting it from his trousers. It offered no resistance. “You d-don’t know w-what love _is_.”

“I have observed humans for millennia,” It said, still quite calm. “Those are the words you declare when you want reciprocation.”

“That’s not- that isn’t _-_!” Bill threw himself out of Its grip and leapt to his feet, tucking his cock back into his trousers with a shivering disgust. “This c-conversation is d-done,” he said, running a shaky hand up through his hair. “Y-you’re going to _d-die_ in two days. I’m d-done with you.” He made a violent gesture at It with his fists. “I’m d-done letting you _fh-f-fuck_ with me.”

It continued to sit among the leaves, its legs stretched out before it. Sitting in such a fashion, it almost looked like a child. “Those are the correct words. They are what I feel.” It inclined Its head at him. “You make Me feel.”

“No,” he said, white hot anger suddenly leaping inside him. “No, you’re j-just l-l-lying to me, trying to m-manipulate me. You hurt me. You t-terrorized me. You d-don’t know what l-love is.”

“You make assumptions.”

“Assumptions?” Bill scoffed, frenzied in his anger. “Yeah, because you’ve g-given me so much ruh-r-reason to believe you!”

“I love-“ It started, but Bill cut It off with a furious scream. He kicked at the ground, pulled at his hair, furious and aggrieved.

“Stop saying that!” he shouted. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop d-doing this t-to me!”

It did not love him, and he did not want It to love him, and he did not want to imagine It saying those words to him as he throttled the life out of It. He couldn’t stand the thought. He couldn’t stand any of this. He hated IT, _hated_ that It had managed to trap him in a web of fiendish deceit.

“Just stop it,” he snarled. “I h-hate you and I h-hate myself, and its y-your fault that I do.” There were tears gathering in his eyes. He hastily wiped them away before they could fall. “I hate you s-so much.”

It had fallen into a sombre silence. It wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Y-y-you’ve _ruined_ me,” he hissed.

Words suddenly weren’t enough; he wanted to grab It, to hurt it, to break it, to make it feel even a tiny bit of the horror it had inflicted on him. He wanted it to feel _human_.

It slowly rose to Its feet. It was a creature that revelled in pain and grief, especially pain and grief it generated, but there was no indication of that in the way it gazed at Bill. “We will fight, then,” It said, hideously calm. Bill wanted to rip that placid expression off Its skull. “We will fight, you will lose, and I will have my way.”

“Y-you’ll die,” said Bill, his voice shaking. “We’ll k-kill you.”

It moved close enough to touch him, Its fingers ghosting over his jaw and brushing down his neck. The gentleness was far worse than any pain It could have inflicted.

This was torture. Not the biting, not the abuse – _this_ was torture.

“Remember, Little Buddy: you chose this.” And with that, It was gone.

For a while, all Bill did was sit in the foliage and weep into his arms. At this point he didn’t know who he was angrier with: himself, or It.

By the time he returned to the hotel to find Mike, Bev, and Richie attempting to squeeze pointed fencing stakes into an already overflowing duffel bag, his tears had dried and his eyes had turned clear and determined.

It was going to die, and Bill was going to be the one to kill It.

* * *

It was late evening when the Losers’ gathered in the lounge room to devise a plan. They brought in drinks from the bar, wine and bourbon and a white latte for Bill, who couldn’t stomach anything stronger. The rims of their glasses and cups rarely touched their lips throughout the discussion, the content of it demanding their full attention.

Bill was the one to put forth the most ideas, still full of contempt for the lies It had subjected him to earlier that day. He wanted to make sure It didn’t have the opportunity to say to the Losers what It had said to him. How they would respond if It said It loved him in front of them, he didn’t know, and he didn’t want to find out; the mere thought was enough to make him want to curl in on himself. The humiliation of such an event would be too great for him to bare.

Eventually they decided that they would corner it in the sewer, subdue it with their fencing stakes (what few projectile weapons they had would be preserved for an emergency), and make sure it was down long enough for Bill to conquer It on its own battlefield. This would all be done as a group, of course, save for Bill entering Its domain. There was no avoiding the necessity of doing that alone. Mike had told them as much when Richie had protested, going so far as to say they could very well lose as a consequence of someone – he’d given Richie a hard look at this point – disrupting the Ritual of Chud.

Saturday night was when they would descend in the sewer. The end of the second day. They couldn’t risk going any later or it would end up being _It_ pursuing _them_.

Their planning continued well into the night, and despite the anxiety pricking at the surface of Bill’s mind, he started to nod off. He never had coped well with sleep deprivation. Some people could power through the day without having slept, but Bill spent every subsequent hour without sleep feeling like hell.

He rubbed his thumbs into his aching eyes and yawned. Richie glanced at him, then made a show of checking his watch.

“Gee, ten thirty,” he said, tapping the surface of his rolex. “Guess we should head to bed, huh? Don’t want to be tired for tomorrow night!”

“It is getting late,” Mike agreed. He was looking tired himself, sighing and swiping his fingers over the corners of his eyes.

“We can g-gather in the m-m-morning to go over our p-plan,” said Bill, his voice barely above a mumble, punctuated with stutters and yawns. He’d finished his latte in hopes it would keep him awake, but it hadn’t helped much. Just made him jittery and nauseous.

Beverly and Ben rose at the same time. “Sounds good,” said Ben, and Beverly followed it with a, “See you boys in the morning. Try to get some sleep this time, Bill.”

Bill grunted noncommittally and let Richie guide him to his feet. He was practically falling asleep against Richie’s shoulder by the time they reached Richie’s room. His head nodded as he was made to sit on the edge of the bed, and he offered minimal assistance when Richie began to gently divest him of his outer layer of clothes. He just wanted to go to sleep. He’d probably be drifting the moment his head hit the pillows.

Halfway through removing his shorts, Richie gasped. Bill regarded him sleepily, confused but too tired to say as much.

“Bill…” Richie’s bunched his khaki shorts around his knees and peered down at his naked thighs – except, they weren’t entirely naked, because Bill belatedly remembered that he still had bandages on from Its rough treatment.

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. He’s completely forgotten about the bandages!

Moving entirely on instinct, he yanked his shorts back up and grasped the edge of Richie’s quilt, throwing it over himself. 

“I cut myself in the tub,” he blurted out, then grimaced at how obvious a lie it was. He’d already used the ‘injured self while bathing’ lie and bringing attention back to it probably just reminded Richie that the injury he’d said to be on his foot was conspicuously absent. “S-shit, I mean… what a-actually happened w-was…”

“Did It do that to you?”

Bill recoiled in horror, and that was probably answer enough.

“Jesus Christ, man,” Richie breathed. “It tried to eat you, didn’t it?”

Bill remained silent. He couldn’t think of a response that wouldn’t further incriminate him.

“It did, didn’t it?” moaned Richie, clearly horrified. “And you didn’t _say_ _anything_? Why would you keep something like that private?” Richie gave Bill’s shoulders a gentle squeeze. “Answer me, Bill! Why didn’t you say something?”

Bill took a deep breath to reorientate himself. When he spoke, his voice was so soft as to barely be audible. “T-that’s not what h-happened. It didn’t try to eat me, It… It, uh…” His mouth worked around the words, but he couldn’t seem to force them out. He was too afraid of what Richie might think.

“There’s no point in trying to lie to me,” said Richie, scowling. He’d misinterpreted Bill’s comment, which was probably for the best. “It tried to take a bite out of your thigh! Pretty high up, too. Gross.”

“I don’t w-want to t-talk about it,” he tried.

“Nu-uh. This is not one of those ‘let’s keep it quiet’ things. This is a ‘we really, really need to talk about this’ thing.” Richie shook his head in dismay. “It tried to e _at you_ , Bill, and I wasn’t there, and for some reason you’ve kept it quiet, and that _worries_ me.”

“Wh-w-what does it m-matter?” he asked. He couldn’t seem to raise his voice beyond a mumble. “We f-f-fight it t-t-tomorrow either way.”

“I just…” Richie lowered himself to kneel between Bill’s shaking knees, reaching to grasp Bill by his hands. He held them loosely in his own. “I can tell whatever the hell It did traumatized you, man, and I want to do something about it. Seeing you so stressed out makes me feel so _helpless_.” He pressed his cheek to Bill’s knee. “Please tell me what’s wrong, Bill. I want to help.”

Bill considered Richie beseeching face, felt the tremble in his grip, and his resolve crumbled.

“Do you remember when I asked about prostitutes?” he asked, his voice very quiet. He braced himself for the disgust and pity that would undoubtedly come.

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with-?”

Richie’s jaw slackened. He had finally made the connection, as terrible and unbelievable as it was.

“It- it- it sexually assaulted you?”

Bill looked away. Whatever he’d had with Richie, he knew it was over now, knew it was unsalvageable. No one would want him after such a revelation.

There seemed to be very little air in his lungs; his breaths were coming short and shallow. He started to withdraw, rising from the bed to flee to his room, because surely Richie wouldn’t want to share a bed with him after what he had just found out, but Richie maintained a firm grip on his hands. Gentle tugging brought Bill back to the edge of the mattress.

“Whatever it did to you, Bill, I don’t think less of you for it,” said Richie. Each word he spoke was carefully measured. “Bev almost got assaulted by her dad because of It, remember? None of us would think any less of you for getting the same treatment.”

Bill hadn’t the will to tell him it was far worse than he was assuming, that he had _enjoyed_ it. That, in some crazy way, he actually _wanted_ to be with It, and he didn’t know if this longing was something It had forced upon him or something he had come up with on his own. Maybe the sex was just _that_ good, maybe he wanted to change It into something better, maybe he thought giving himself over would save them all – he didn’t know, and he didn’t want to examine those feelings long enough to figure out what he truly wanted. He only knew that killing it would bring peace to Derry, and that was more important than anything else.

“I r-r-really don’t want to t-talk a-about it, Richie,” he pleaded. “I j-just want to s-sleep.”

Richie gave his fingers a squeeze. “Can I at least ask one more thing?”

Bill stared at the floor a moment, then said, “What?”

“Can I kiss you?”

That definitely hadn’t been among the things Bill had expected Richie to ask. “What?” he said again, weaker.

“Can I kiss you?” asked Richie again. “You don’t have to say yes. I just really like you, Bill, and whatever the hell went on… or is still going on between you and It, I don’t care.” He gave a whistling exhale. “So, can I kiss you?”

Bill swallowed. “J-just a kiss?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

Leaning over his lap, Richie pressed their mouths chastely together, his eyelids falling shut and his dark lashes brushing his pale cheeks. Bill kept his gaze trained on Richie’s face until the man withdrew. A slight dusting of pink had risen on the high rises of his cheekbones.

It was entirely different to any kisses Bill had exchanged with It. Dry and warm. Pleasant. It made his heart beat a little erratically, but in a good way that left his head light and dizzy.

“Was that okay?” asked Richie softly.

“Y-yeah,” stuttered Bill. “Not wet at a-all.”

Richie arched an eyebrow. “Not sure what you’re using as a basis for comparison, but it sounds like your previous partner wasn’t doing it right.”

“Beep Beep, Richie,” said a cold, high voice.

They looked up at the same time.

Standing in the corner of the room was the impossibly tall figure of It, Its eyes a pitiless blood red, Its teeth pointed and gritted. Bill hadn’t even noticed it was there.

It advanced on them without warning and caught Richie by the neck, throwing him into the wall with bone-breaking force, its fingers constricting around the bobbing column of his throat. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for Richie’s face to turn pink. It was crushing him, crushing the life out of him-!

Bill leapt off the bed and threw himself into Its side as hard as he could. It was just enough to jar Richie out of its grasp, and while It was making a swipe for Bill – making to grab him – Richie ran to the bedside table and snatched up a lamp, hurling it at Its bulbous head. It simply bounced off and smashed upon the floor, but it turned back on Richie in response, snarling low and dangerous. Its talons had broken out of the confines of Its gloves and were spread in preparation for a killing blow. 

“No!” Bill cried, now grabbing at the material of its suit, trying without avail to draw it away from a panicking Richie. He’d frozen like a deer in headlights. “Richie, run!” he bellowed. “Fucking r-run, you i-idiot!”

Richie finally moved, scrambling over the bedside table and onto the bed, making a frantic lunge for the opposite side of the room. It got a grip on his ankle before he could get out of harm’s way. He screamed as he was yanked back, its talons drawing bloody lines into his skin.

“No!” Bill cried, louder now, and in one final bid to make It let Richie go he threw himself into Its arms, grasping at Its face, forcing It to look at him.

He succeeded in making it pause.

“If you want me, j-just fucking take me,” he pleaded. “I’m right here! Just take me!”

It hesitated, gaze flicking between Richie and Bill.

“Just take me,” he said, and leaned his face into Its neck.

The grip around Richie’s ankle slackened. Slowly, reluctantly, It coiled its limbs around Bill and drew him into a rigid embrace. Its teeth were still bared at Richie, gums visible, but it seemed subdued for the moment. One wrong move, and It would probably resume its warpath.

However, Richie didn’t have the opportunity to make ‘one wrong move’. Within the blink of an eye, It was gone.

And so was Bill.


	7. Day 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so, I wanted to thank everyone who has left kudos/feedback! I appreciate every comment and kudos I receive! If not for you guys encouraging me, I never would have been able to write this fic so fast! So thank you so so so much.
> 
> After this chapter, there’s going to be a wrap-up (which was actually going to be part of this chapter, but this chapter is already 8k and I didn’t want to overwhelm people by having it be 10k+. I also felt it would flow better if I posted the wrap-up separately), and then an epilogue. So two more chapters!

Richie had always liked the phrase ‘shit hit the fan’. It was short, sweet, and appealed to Richie’s juvenile sense of humour. It was also a succinct way to describe his current circumstances.

The McDonald’s mascot reject had burst in and kidnapped his friend – a friend he’d had rather non-friend-ish feelings for, and all Richie had managed to do was throw a lamp at it and flounder his way onto the bed. He hadn’t even managed to crawl far enough to evade its grabbing hands, ending up with his legs hanging off the end of the bed and one of its massive hands wrapped tight around his ankle. The bloody claw marks It had left throbbed angrily in reminder of his failings.

Now It and Bill were gone, and Richie thought to himself that he would have taken a hundred booing crowds and embarrassing gossip articles over the utter feeling of helplessness and self-loathing that had descended over his frazzled mind. Bill had given himself over to save Richie. The knowledge threatened to eat him from inside out, had already left him with a vast hollowness that evoked tears.

But there was no time to wallow in self-loathing. He needed to gather the Losers and get Bill back. And Richie _would_ get him back; he wouldn’t stop hounding the beast until Bill was safe, even if it meant sacrificing his own life (though preferably it wouldn’t come to that, because Richie fully intended to spend the rest of it _with_ Bill).

He limped his way out of his room, leaving a trail of blood as he crossed the hall to where Mike was staying. Mike hadn’t slept at his house since the incident with Stan’s disembodied head.

He gave his door three hard knocks. The response was almost immediate, as though Mike had been expecting Richie.

The moment the door opened, Richie pushed his way inside and shouldered past Mike, intending to retrieve the weapons Mike had stowed in his bathroom.

“We need to get going,” he called to Mike, who lingered at the door, presumably stunned into silence by Richie’s appearance and behaviour. Richie dropped to his knees before a duffel bag and sifted through the contents until he found a firearm. The gun Mike had said his father kept for security purposes. Mike’s long shadow fell over him while he was in the process of checking the magazine.

“You’re bleeding,” said Mike, and Richie shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter. We need to go to the sewer _now_.”

“What happened?” Despite Richie’s insistence that they needed to leave, Mike had started retrieving gauze and antiseptic from the sink cabinet.

Richie flicked on the safety before shoving the gun into his belt. He didn’t want to inadvertently shoot his ass cheek off.

“Richie,” said Mike, his voice gentle. “Tell me what happened.”

“It took Bill,” he whispered, his voice strained. His shoulders shook minutely and his fingers convulsed into fists. “It came in and just took him, and all I did was just – nothing, I couldn’t do anything, Mike.” He was growing distraught. “I was fucking useless!”

Mike dropped to his hunches next to him, sliding an arm around his shoulders and bringing their bodies together in a half-hug. Richie leaned into the comfort. “It’s not your fault. I doubt any of us would have been able to stop it on our own.” His calloused hands slid to Richie’s damaged ankle and hitched up the soggy pantleg. Some of the blood had turned dry and glutinous, catching on Mike’s fingers when he started to wipe at the wound with a cotton ball soaked in antiseptic. Richie didn’t try to stop him, though having to wait was making him antsy.

“We’ll get him back.” Mike cast him a reassuring smile. “Just like we got Bev back.”

Moisture gathered in his eyes and he had to wipe it away.

“We can do it,” Mike said, now wrapping a thick layer of gauze around his ankle. Probably trying to fortify it against the grey water they would soon be splashing through, but Richie expected all of them would have an e. coli infection by the time they emerged from the sewer. It was a miracle they hadn’t ended up grievously sick as kids after their first romp through the pipes.

“Y-yeah, ‘course we can,” he mumbled, offering a shaky smile back. “He’s still alive, so – so there’s that. It won’t kill him.”

“Did it say that?” asked Mike.

“No,” said Richie. “But I know it won’t. Trust me on that.”

Whatever it wanted for Bill, it was far worse than the quick, painless death it intended for the rest of them.

He was up the moment Mike had finished dressing his injury, heaving their duffel bag onto his shoulder with a series of grunts. It was heavy enough that his body was bent to one side. When Mike attempted to help him, he brushed him off with a, “I’ve got,” and continued on with, “You grab the others, I’ll be in the lobby waiting.” A few cuts on his leg wasn’t about to stop Richie fucking Tozier from making himself useful.

While he appeared concerned, Mike still nodded and headed for the exit. “We’ll be down in five.”

Richie followed him out into the vacant hallway. They parted ways, Mike heading further down the hall while Richie lumbered his way over to the elevator. He stepped inside and slammed a fist over the ground button, then stood against the wall, taking the brief lull in activity as an opportunity to hitch the duffel bag further up his shoulder. Already the limb had begun to ache. Just another pain to add to his growing list of ailments.

Once on the bottom floor, he heaved the duffel bag over to the exit and waited. He did not wait patiently, rocking from foot to foot and studying the cold dark beyond the exit doors. Two girls entered while he was standing there, hanging off each other and casting him queer looks as they passed. Either they recognized him from his talk show or they thought it odd that some random guy was standing before the doors holding a duffel bag. Probably the latter.

He could have crowed with relief when the Losers finally came running down the stairs, huddled in a tight group.

“Richie!” cried Eddie, breaking from the group to run over to him. “Mike said It took Bill from your room! I’m so sorry – I didn’t hear a damned thing or I would have tried to help!”

“Wait, really?” asked Richie. “You didn’t hear anything?” He knew Its influence enabled it to moderate what people saw, heard, or felt, but he was just surprised It had _bothered_. Had it been afraid of them gathering in the same place? It was a reassuring thought.

“Well, except a couple of thumps,” admitted Eddie. “But I assumed that was from…” Were his face not so washed out from distress, Eddie probably would have been blushing right up to the tips of his ears.

Richie gave him a push out the door. The other Losers followed suit. “Doesn’t matter now. We gotta get going or Bill is fucked.” Possibly in the literal sense, if his and Bill’s earlier conversation was anything to go by.

“What’s the new plan?” asked Ben.

Richie shrugged, turning to Mike. There were only two steps Richie had in mind: 1) Kill It, and 2) rescue Bill, and not necessarily in that order. He’d never been much of a planner.

“Same as our old plan,” said Mike. “Except without Bill.”

Eddie made a small, strangled sound at the ‘except without Bill’ part. Whatever his sentiment was, Richie probably shared it. ‘Without Bill’ was not a comforting phrase. Bill had always been the strongest of them all, the leader, the one with a plan… and now he’d been captured, and it was hard not to fall into a state of helplessness. Richie only held his head above water by reminding himself that Bill was still alive. Captured, but alive.

The five of them filed out into the street. They paused, for just a moment, each of them experiencing varying degrees of déjà vu, and then turned as a whole and headed for Neibolt house.

* * *

Bill returned to consciousness slowly and blearily. He rocked his head and twitched his limbs, trying to shake himself out of a thick veil of disorientation. His head pounded. Not from trauma, but from something else, something that had been far more crippling. He only recalled a terrible pressure on the surface of his brain and then – nothing. He hadn’t known rendering people unconscious to be among Its capabilities.

When the ability to discern sensation returned to Bill, he realized he was sprawled across damp stone. He drew himself up onto his elbows and surveyed his surroundings, finding them unfamiliar. He was somewhere in the sewer, that much was clear, but there was no means to gauge where exactly he was. He could have been anywhere.

A lantern sat next to him, enveloping his surroundings in a faint ethereal glow. It looked very, very old, and Bill had to wonder how long Pennywise had had it in Its possession, and if It had ever made use of it before. He reached out and grasped the shiny iron handle, bringing It closer. It was an odd-looking thing, unlike any lantern Bill had ever seen. Square with a cross on each side and a loop of metal attached to a cone on the top. There was no candle inside, but instead buzzing orange light that maintained its position in the middle of the lantern even when Bill gave it a violent shake.

He pulled himself to his knees, lantern in hand, and got a better look at where It had taken him. There wasn’t much to see, just four stone walls and a large square grate attached to a low ceiling. When he rose to leap for the grate, it was a good two feet beyond his reach. He didn’t dare try to use the lantern to boost himself up. It looked ready to break at the slightest pressure.

It took Bill a moment to realize the lantern wasn’t the only thing in the room. There were bones – _hundreds_ of bones of varying shapes and sizes in different points of deterioration. Some were so brittle that they snapped upon being stepped on. Others, femurs and the like, were nice and sturdy, and Bill managed to swallow down his nausea and disgust long enough to grab one of the femurs and wield it like a weapon. 

He wouldn’t chance using the lantern. He didn’t want to inadvertently destroy his only source of light.

“Where the f-fuck are y-you!” He bellowed at the grating. “Come d-down here, you f-fucking asshole!”

Bill waited.

Silence.

“If you d-don’t come down here,” he yelled. “I’ll h-hurt myself!”

The grating cover abruptly rose. Bill was forced to retreat a step as It dropped into the room, landing so straight and rigid it seemed a miracle its legs didn’t jar up into its gut. It didn’t say a word before snatching the lantern out of his hand and dragging him across the room by the front of his tank top, over to the only corner not occupied by the remains of a past victim. It forced him to sit and placed the lantern at his side.

“I don’t have time for your disobedience,” It said. “Your friends will be here shortly.”

“If you do a-anything to them-!”

“I gave you a choice,” It snapped. “And you chose their deaths.”

“I didn’t ch-c-choose anything,” Bill snarled. He moved to strike It across the head with his weapon and recoiled when It thwarted his attack by snapping its massive teeth around the middle of the bone, biting through it with a disturbing ease. The noises It made while chewing on the bone made Bill’s stomach turn. It finished with a loud swallow, using a nail to pick sharp remnants out of Its teeth and flick them aside.

“I have no appetite for the greasy boy-man meat of the trashmouth.” It sneered at Bill. “But since you insist on being errant, he will be eaten while you watch.”

Bill ground his molars. To think he’d ever humoured the thought that this _monster_ could be changed. “And you had the uh-a-audacity to tell me you loved me.”

It paused. “I do.”

“You just s-said you were going to k-kill my friend – maybe even m-my _best_ friend – in f-front of me!” When he tried to rise to his feet, It pushed him back down. He snapped a fist over Its thin wrist, which achieved absolutely nothing. “You d-don’t love me! If you d-did, you wouldn’t do s-something so f-fucked up!”

It let out a long, low hiss that send spit flying into Bill’s face. He wiped it off with a forearm. “Fine,” It said, exasperated. “Fine. You will not witness his death, nor the deaths of your friends. But they will die.”

“You expect me to ever w-want you if you kill my f-friends?”

“They-!” It began, hunching low, Its hand still coiled in the front of Bill’s tank top. “Will attempt to kill Me if I do not. I will not let them _hound_ Me for your sake.”

“Then t-tell them to leave!” A pleading note had crept into his voice. It made Bill wince to hear it. “T-tell them I w-want them to!”

“You know they will not.” Their foreheads brushed together. “Not without you.”

That Bill was worth fighting for seemed to be a sentiment It respected.

“Then just- just hide,” he tried instead. “Just hide. Hide with me. They’ll stop eventually.”

It hesitated. “They won’t. They must die.”

He only had the span of a breath to worry about the well-being of his friends before It withdrew, tilting Its head in a way that suggested It had heard something far beyond Bill’s range of hearing. Attention diverted, It paid Bill no further mind and leapt up through the grate with the same grace with which it had entered, the hiss of the cover being lowered back into place indicating that Bill was once again trapped inside.

Bill resumed staring up at the grate with his lantern in hand, growing distraught as he considered the two feet of space separating him from his friends. He made a couple of running leaps at it and didn’t so much as graze the metal with the tips of his fingers. He even tried climbing the wall, but the surface of it was too slippery to gain any traction. It allowed for even less progress than simply jumping at it did.

He tried yelling at the grate, things like ‘I’m down here!’ and ‘please come back!’, and received no response. His yelling dissolved into screams, and then into sobs, and Bill sank to the floor with his wet face nestled between his knees. He tried to draw in a breath and his lungs refused to cooperate; he was suffocating on his panic, becoming dizzy and faint and shaking from head to toe. He would have done anything, subjected himself to any horror, just to hear one of the Losers’ voices call back down to him.

‘We’re here, Bill. We’re okay.’

He was sitting in here, safe and sound, and they were probably being torn apart, and it was his own damned fault for letting himself get caught.

His throat hurt from the screaming. He wanted to be sick, but the knot in his throat didn’t allow for anything to pass, not even bile. Prickling anxiety marched beneath his clammy skin.

Leaning his face into the brick, Bill wracked his mind for some way out-

And grasped onto a faint hope.

He crawled across the grimy stone to a nearby scattering of bones, drawing a couple of the larger ones into his lap and bringing them over to the grating. He worked them into a small pile. Looking at his handiwork, his hope returned to him in a rush and he scrambled to gather every single bone in the room.

Little by little, the mound grew, and along with it the feasibility of an escape. Bill ended up with a pile that was well over two feet in height. Now he just had to see if it would withstand his weight.

He placed his lantern on the top so he could hook a foot into the metal coil on his way up and regarded the pile with trepidation. He knew if it didn’t work, there was no way out. No escape. It would kill his friends and Bill would be trapped in the tunnels with It forever. With enough time, he would be deemed dead and promptly forgotten; just a name with a couple of decent horror novels. Bill had never before been so aware of how small and insignificant the life of a human being was.

He licked his lips and hovered a foot over the pile, then stepped up. It groaned under his weight. Working fast, he managed to curl his fingers around a corner of the cover and shove it aside, hooking his hands over the edge of the grate. The pile wobbled precariously as he started to heave himself up – and then broke entirely, scattering across the stone while Bill clamoured for leverage. He’d managed to get a forearm over, but he was slipping, his weight too much for him to bear. In one last desperate attempt to push himself out, he shoved his heel over the lantern – crushing it in the process – and used the scrap of leverage it provided to clamour out.

A great sigh of relief left him as he lay in the shallow water of a tunnel. He rolled onto his side, laughing to himself, practically convulsing with glee. He was so buoyant that he shed a few happy tears.

His happiness didn’t last long, however, when he remembered the purpose of his escape. He needed to find his friends.

Without the lamp, his surroundings were left pitch black. Bill pushed the cover of the grate back into place so he wouldn’t accidentally fall down should he end up going the wrong way. With nothing to guide him, Bill stretched his arms out and started to walk. What direction he was going and if it led anywhere was anybody’s guess.

It wasn’t long before his hands grazed the slimy surface of a wall. Bill hugged himself to it, following it down high slopes and sharp corners and hoping miserably that it wasn’t taking him around in circles. He resolved to try the opposite wall if the world around him remained dark and cavernous for another hundred steps. 

On his fifty sixth step, Bill was brought to a stop. He’d heard a noise. Something warbling, like a yell, like pain. An exclamation of pain.

He quickened his feet, splashing through grey water in the approximate direction of the voice. He was soon rewarded with the mouth of a tunnel and a strange light, a ghastly effluence that reminded Bill of the sun peering down from behind thick storm clouds. His footfalls boomed as he ran for that light. He heard another yell, this one louder, identifiable as a woman’s, and his heart seized in his chest – _Beverly_!

“Beverly!” he bellowed. “Bev, hold on!”

The screaming stopped, becoming a barely audible chain of whimpers. A thump followed and a figure stepped before the mouth of the pipe. It appeared to be a woman, one with long ginger hair that reached her feet and one wide, black eye with a sclera polluted with red veins and a yellow sheen. Bill recognized the dress it wore; it was the dress Beverly had often worn to school, the one she had been wearing the day her father had assaulted her. A horrified choking left him when he realized there was blood accumulating between the woman’s legs, stretching a patch of slick red across the front of the dress.

The woman rushed at him. He didn’t need to see the white expanding across the woman’s features to know it was not a woman, but _It_ pursuing him. He threw himself out of Its path and ran past, leaping into the room at the end of the pipe and peering around just long enough to spot Beverly hunched over and bleeding against a wall. “Bill, what-!” was all she managed to get out before being whisked into Bill’s arms and all but carried into the pipe opposite the one he had come from. They ran at such incredible speeds that they may have looked like a couple of antelope to the uncritical eye.

“Where’s the o-others?” he asked, breathless. “Are t-they okay?”

“They aren’t far from here!” said Beverly, entwining their fingers and surging forward. The blood sliding down from a cut on her forearm turned their palms slick.

“Are they okay?” he asked again.

“I- I don’t know.”

“Why aren’t you t-together?”

“It separated us.” Her voice was failing her, little more than a mutter between pants. “Got us trapped in different areas.”

“Shit,” Bill hissed, and that was where the conversation ended.

They ran even when it was clear It wasn’t following, heading down one pipe after the other, avoiding any pathway that appeared too dark to navigate. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if they got lost. All the while they held tight on to each other’s hand, knowing if they let go that there was the potential for one of them to slip away.

They ended up in a room with knee-deep water, sloshing their way across a row of tunnels. Beverly bellowed down each one as they passed, while Bill listened intently for a response. “Mike!” she yelled. “Bill’s here! If you can hear us, shout back!” She tugged Bill back the other way when they received no reply. “Mike, come on! Mike!”

“Mike isn’t here! It’s Eddie!”

Thank God, Bill thought. _Thank God_. He’d been scared they wouldn’t be able to find _anyone_.

“Keep on talking!” said Beverly.

“I’m down here!” Eddie yelled, his voice rising in pitch. “I’m down here! I’m down here! I’m down here!”

They pursued the sound of his voice.

“A-are you okay!?” Bill asked in a yell.

“N-no!” came the feeble reply. It echoed off the walls of the tunnel. “Not entirely!”

“Are you bleeding?” asked Beverly.

“Kind of worse than that,” answered Eddie, his voice so close that they couldn’t be far now, not more than a few feet away.

Through a light of which the source was undetermined and undeterminable, they were finally able to see Eddie sitting on the floor of the tunnel with his arm cradled to his chest. It was broken. It was broken it in the exact same place it had been as children, the limb bent at an awkward, painful looking angle. Eddie beamed when he saw them, as helplessly crazy with relief as Bill had been upon his escape.

“I punched it in the face,” he whispered.

Bill laughed and clapped a hand on his shoulder – the one that wasn’t attached to his broken arm, of course, and then drew him up into a hug. Beverly smiled.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” said Eddie in a wet voice. He ran a palm over the space between Bill’s shoulder blades. “I was freaking out for a bit there. I thought It would get me for sure.”

“So the o-others are alive?”

“They were when I saw them last. Ben and Mike were together, and Richie had a gun last I saw him.”

Whatever cosmic force was looking over them, Bill was eternally grateful. He released Eddie and grabbed his hand, then offered his free one to Beverly, who linked their fingers. They advanced into the tunnel together, following Eddie’s lead.

Strangely, Eddie seemed to actually know where he was going. He needn’t pause to listen for voices nor yell for some idea as to where everyone was. He walked along like a bloodhound in a forest, alert eyes scanning their surroundings for clues that neither he nor Beverly were able to discern. All Bill could see were leaves, fungus, and grime matting the stone walls.

They passed the remains of a still-decomposing child and all of them shivered, the fine hairs on their necks lifting in alarm; they must be getting close now. The tunnel was mostly dry, save for the occasional stagnant puddle. These were untraversed depths – untraversed by anything living and human, in any case.

They took four more turns – one left, three rights - before they heard a scuffle taking place up ahead. Eddie tugged them forward with increased urgency. They fell into a run and surged through the tunnel until they came upon three figures in the middle of a squabble.

Ben, Mike, and Richie-

No, thought Bill, his hopes dashed. Not Richie. _Henry Bowers_.

Though aged beyond his years, dirty blonde hair streaked with grey and teeth a rotten yellow, there was no mistaking that narrow face for anyone else.

Bill had thought him dead. Even hoped a little, if he was honest. Henry Bowers had been a beast of a boy.

He held a blade in his hand, streaked with red. Bill glanced at Mike, who was clutching his thigh in shaking hands, and then back at the knife. It was clear what had happened.

Ben was standing in front of Mike, an arm outstretched. A wound on his palm oozed blood.

“Henry,” Bill started, thinking that perhaps he could reason with the man, but Henry turned to him and growled and there was not a hint of humanity hidden in its depths. Whatever It had done to bring Henry down here, to make him Its dogsbody, it had been thorough about it. If there had been any reason left in him prior to descending into the tunnels, it had been evicted through Its influence.

Bill took a step back, pressing Eddie and Beverly behind him in the same movement. “C-come on, Henry,” he murmured.

Henry’s interest seemed to be piqued. He abandoned Ben and Mike to brandish his knife at a retreating Bill, like an animal scenting fear. Bill could almost smell the rot on his teeth when he exhaled.

“Remember w-when we kicked y-your ass as kids?” he asked. “Remember that, Henry?”

Henry glowered and skulked closer, moving faster. Soon there wouldn’t be more than a foots width separating them.

Bill looked pointedly at Ben, whose eyes lit up in realization.

“Bill,” hissed Eddie, so close that his breath rolled over Bill’s neck. “What’re you doing? We don’t have anything to fight him off with!”

“Shh,” whispered Beverly. “He knows what he’s doing.”

Henry took one leaping step toward them and was promptly smacked across the back of the head by Ben, leading to him dropping his knife, which Mike then kicked out of his reach. From there, it didn’t take them long to subdue him and tie his wrists and ankles together with his own clothes, leaving him to lie in a helpless puddle on the floor. His shouted obscenities echoed through the tunnels.

“Where’s Richie?” asked Bill, helping Mike get an arm around Ben’s broad shoulders. They walked at a hobble in the approximate direction of their destination, wherever that may be. The only one who seemed to have any idea of where to go was Eddie, who walked ahead of them with a packet of matches clasped tight in white fingers, ready for when they encountered the dark. And they would soon. Bill could see it up ahead.

“No idea,” said Ben, and as if on cue, a great howling scream reverberated through the tunnels, drowning out the furious wailing of Henry Bowers.

Bill’s blood turned cold. Every hair on his body stood on end. He wrenched free of his friend’s hands and felt their fingers grasp at the back of his shirt, seeking to pull him back, to keep them united, and evaded them with a twist of his body. He ran into the darkness and he knew in some odd, crazy way that he would not strike a wall. A cold presence in him beckoned him deeper. It told him where to go, where to turn, and it whispered in his ear with soft malice that it was his fault this was happening, and Bill was shaken by the notion that it was his conscience.

His friends’ pursuing footfalls started to sound very far away, but the screaming steadily grew in volume. Maybe if he got close enough he would be able to hear Richie cracking a joke. Joking while he was being torn apart. That seemed like the sort of crazy bullshit he would pull.

The screaming was suddenly punctuated with a loud whimper and the urge to dissolve into hysterics seized the splintered pieces of Bill’s mind and turned cracks into maws, and if Bill had a soul it was surely just as damaged as his psyche. It took every bit of will Bill had left to hold himself together. He couldn’t let himself get lost, not yet.

Up ahead, a brilliant orange light called him closer. There was a strange liveliness to it, a thrumming in the orange that wasn’t unlike the thrumming of a circulatory system, pumping poison instead of blood. He slowed without meaning to as he stepped into it and a brief, wonderful feeling of completion surged through him-

And was promptly overwhelmed by horror at the sight of Richie impaled on the claw of some colossal, haunting beast that was so incongruous with the world as to almost be incomprehensible to the human eye. Four arms extended from a hulking, humanoid torso that had a great gaping maw stretched across its immense belly, a blue-grey tongue spilling out over hundreds of serrated teeth and across the stone floor, dripping enough saliva to form its own puddles. There were bones sticking out in some areas and rough black fuzz on others. It had one long, coiling tail wrapped in a crescent around its leg that ended in white bone. Its head was faintly distinguishable as three florescent orange eyes mounted inside a round, cavernous mouth that made Bill’s entire body throb if he tried to look inside.

The sight of it rendered him still, his thoughts fevered with awe.

And yet he was not driven insane, as he should have been. He looked upon this creature – the closest representation it had to its true form-

(The Deadlights, thought Bill distantly)

And yes, his thoughts were distant and disorganized, but he was not insane.

All three of its eyes turned upon Bill, and behind them sat the shadow of what It truly was. He all but forgot about Richie until he heard his friend – boyfriend? – call out to him.

“Bill!”

He snapped out of his daze. “Richie.”

There was a sizable stain of red on Richie’s blue polo shirt. Its claw was embedded in his shoulder. If it wrenched that talon down, it would surely slice him in half.

From behind him he heard a series of yelps and screams. He looked over his shoulder to see Ben, Beverly, Mike, and Eddie staring up at the beast with identical expressions of shock.

“Holy shit,” breathed Ben. “It’s a fucking _spider_.”

A spider?

Bill looked at It again, and he couldn’t see where one could draw the comparison. There was nothing about this abomination that looked even remotely like a spider.

“A spider that _has Richie_!” Eddie cried, attempting to break free of the group only to be reeled back by Beverly.

Was he the only one seeing It in a different form? It didn’t much matter, he supposed. Either way, It had Richie, and either way, he had to save Richie’s life.

“Give him to me,” he demanded, projecting as much authority as he could through his tone. His voice didn’t so much as tremble. “Give him to me _now_.”   

It did not reply, though it did extract Its claw and dangle it over Richie’s bobbing throat instead.

“Give him to me!” Bill bellowed with a ferocity that would have made the average man quiver in their boots. “If you don’t give him to me, you can forget about having me!”

It drew closer, dragging Richie’s battered body along with it, leaving a trail of blood in its wake, and Bill stepped forward to meet it. 

“Bill, stop!” cried Beverly.

“Stay where you are!” he shouted, keeping his eyes trained on Its bulbous orange ones. They were bright enough to light up the entire room, intense enough to make his retinas throb. But for Richie’s sake, he dared not look away.

It leaned closer, giant hands settling on either side of Bill, and the Ritual of Chud began.

* * *

A vast darkness closed around Bill, swallowing up the filthy sewer walls and the figures of his friends and the dying form of Richie until there was nothing but Bill and an interminable, suffocating black that was everything and nothing all at once. There was a floor beneath him, but it was indistinguishable from the ebony of the rest of this eternity. Perhaps it was not a floor at all, Bill thought, and certainly, it was more like a block of ice when he planted his hands flat on it and rose to his feet.

_Quite a tricky boy, aren’t you Little Buddy._

Its voice came from somewhere far away.

_You’ve escaped me many a time, far more than I ever should have permitted, but never again._

I’m here to kill you, and I’m not leaving here until I do.

Its loud, jovial laughter rang in Bill’s ears.

 _You’re not leaving here_ full stop _, regardless of your foolish intentions. You are part of My domain now. A permanent fixture. Or you will be, soon._

No, I’m going to-

_Be part of this place, very, very soon. You’ll like it here, Little Buddy, or you’ll learn to with time. We’ll have all the time in the world to spend together once you’re part of Me. We can take romantic walks through the endless cold dark – won’t that be fun? You’ll be able to remember all those good times of feeling the earth beneath your feet._

That isn’t going to happen!

_I’m sure you’ll believe that, for a while. But you’ll come around. You will. And when you do, when you ask me, kindly, for my presence, I will endow you with gifts. Its going to be wonderful._

There was something terribly wrong. The thin threads of whatever had enabled It to summon him here were being stretched within a hairs-breadth of snapping. A few of them did snap, flying free, falling from around his fingers like invisible strings. Bill didn’t quite understand the enormity of the situation but he knew those strings were important and each new break came with a swell of despair. 

No no no no no he thrust his fists against the posts-

The old childhood tongue-twister he had used to combat his stutter came unbidden to his mind. As a child, he’d once thought it held the power to recover his parents’ love, and it felt similarly powerful now. He thought if he could just say it, everything would be okay.

He th-thrusts his fists and against the po-p-posts and-

_Stop that. It won’t do you any good._

He th-thrusts his fuh-fists- oh god, please no-

_You can feel it, can’t you? Feel your tether to the human realm snapping. But there’s no need to be afraid, Little buddy; I’ll be here. I’ll always be here to keep you company._

Don’t do this, I don’t want this- he thrusts his fists against the posts-

_You will._

I won’t, I never will, I hate you, I _hate_ you.

He cupped his face in his hands, felt the smooth, dark ground connect with his knees before it registered that he had fallen. He curled his fingers into his hair, screaming into the endless black.

And s-still insists he sees the ghosts!

 _I told you to stop that._ It was snarling now. _It will not help you!_

He th-t-t-thrusts his fuh-fi-fists against the posts, and-

_STOP_

And still insists he sees the ghosts!

It roared with anger and Bill only noticed he wasn’t alone when he felt – oh thank god, he could feel again – a hand wrap around his throat, heaving him off the ground to hold him in the air. When he looked down it was not Pennywise, nor the monstrous beast, nor a spider snarling up at him, but quite a normal looking man, save for the bright orange eyes and pallid complexion. There was a handsomeness to the man’s features that contradicted everything Bill knew of It.

_This is what you want, isn’t it?_

It spoke without moving its lips.

_If this is what you want, this is what would make you content, then I will provide._

I don’t want anything from you.

 _I changed for you! I change for no one, but I changed for_ you _! You should be grateful!_

I’m not going to be grateful for something I didn’t ask for!

It let out a snarl and dropped him back to the ground, drawing their faces close together. It was jarring, how normal It looked. Its appearance didn’t fit the pulsating pitch of Its voice.

 _I am willing to give you_ everything _. Just give me yourself, give me your compliance, give me your love, and I will give you everything._

Bill did not respond to this. Not verbally, in any case. He instead closed what little space was between them and pressed their mouths together. It responded immediately, grasping at his face and hair with hungry hands, tongue roving along his teeth and across his palate, tasting everything It could reach. It drew their bodies together and Bill fit against him like they were two pieces of a puzzle. In this realm, in the body it had chosen, It was surprisingly warm. Bill unconsciously leaned into that warmth and deepened their kiss in the process.

When he pressed It to the floor, It let him. He crawled up its body and straddled Its hips, leaning down to reinitiate their kiss. All the while Its hands roved up and down his body, tearing at his clothes, ripping his tank top off in one fell swoop and throwing it aside; it dissolved into the dark rather than landing upon the floor. With that barrier out of the way, its long fingers splayed out over Bill’s heaving chest.

 _Yesss_ , It hissed into his mouth. It mumbled near-incoherent praises and coasted Its hands down his stomach, grasping at the sharp jut of his hips, pressing him down into a significant bulge hugging the clef of his ass. He moaned at the heat of it and It shivered in delight.

Every sensation in the realm was elevated. Every little touch threatened to unravel Bill, to send him hurtling into a mindless pleasure that would haunt him like the allure of the next hit haunts an addict. He could imagine himself learning to think of nothing else but what It gave him, and that fleeting vision of being stuck in Its heaven for all of eternity motivated Bill to bring an end to their copulation before it went too far…

By snapping his incisors over the fleshiest part of Its tongue.

It shrieked one long, startled note and attempted to withdraw, but Bill held firm. He bit down hard enough to draw forth long threads of black and set his jaw.

_Let go!_

No.

_Let me go! It hurts- let me go! You’re hurting me!_

I’m doing that deliberately.

_Stop, stop stop stop-!_

He grasped It by the shoulders to hold it down and Its entire body writhed from head to toe, Its wild eyes boring up at him with anger and indignation and _fear_. He bit down, bit so hard that flesh started to tear, held Its face in his hands and felt its shriek of pain reverberate up the mutilated flesh. There was black liquid pooling into Bill’s mouth, sliding over his lips and past his teeth, reaching for his throat, and still he held on.

He thrusts his fists against the posts

_No no stop_

and still insists he sees the ghosts!

He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts!

Its shrieking turned low and warbling, reminding Bill queerly of a helpless mewling cat.

He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts!

_Ggh- gng-_

He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists – he – sees –

Thrust through the air like a living bullet, Bill’s teeth came free of his target and he was hurtling backward, back into the dark, air lashing his shoulders and neck and arms and suddenly he found himself standing in the sewer among his agitated and fretful friends, stumbling into their waiting arms in his disorientation.

The abomination and the spider were gone; sitting before them now was Pennywise the dancing clown, and It was pushing itself across the floor with its heels, its white skin chipping away at its hairline to unveil the black husk that resided beneath. Tendrils of gunky black dripped from its mouth, and nose, and eyes, and just looking at it Bill knew he’d delivered a grievous blow. It would not survive their final attack.

The moment he recovered the ability to speak, the first words out of his mouth were, “Where’s Richie?”

“Right here, chief.” Despite the jagged cut running from his shoulder to his chest, Richie was standing upright, leaning into Beverly, a tired smile on his lips. “Kill the fucker,” he said, nodding at It, who was looking without avail for an escape route. There was none. There were no pipes for it to slither into this time.

They advanced. It retreated until its shoulders hit the back wall, then looked at each of them with that same trepidation it had in their youth.

History repeats itself.

“It won’t work,” It croaked. “You can’t kill me.”

“Yeah?” said Eddie, his tone sardonic and loathing. If not for his broken arm, Bill expected he would have gone lunging at it to snuff out what remained of its miserable life. “You say we can’t do a lot of things, but that hasn’t fucking stopped us yet.”

“Damn straight,” crowed Richie.

“He has a point,” said Bill wryly. “You keep on making wild claims with nothing to back them up.”

“Oh, but I can back it up.” It waved a finger at Bill. “I can because of you, _Little Buddy_. You have given me just what I needed.”

Bill froze mid-step. It was going to reference – them; Bill knew it was, and he couldn’t brace himself enough for it.

“When we mated,” It began, and Bill’s face warmed with shame when all but Richie made sounds of disgust and confusion. “We bonded, and we bonded further when you initiated intimacy in My realm.”

Bill fell silent, head hanging between his shoulders.

“Bill,” said Eddie, his voice dreadfully quiet. Bill didn’t need to see his face to know he didn’t believe what It was saying. “Bill, what the hell’s going on? Is it trying to freak us out?”

“It- it doesn’t matter,” he stammered, stepping closer to Its fallen form, in part because he wanted to get away from his friends and the judgement sure to be in their eyes. “We can still kill Its physical body.” He could _feel_ that it was possible, and perhaps that was because of this ‘connection’ It claimed they had, but its existence would do nothing to prevent Bill from striking the final blow. He would do it for his friends, for Stan the man, for Derry, _for Georgie_. Even if it subsisted in that cold, dark, endless black, as long as it was not here to terrorize the residents of Derry, that was fine. Any length of time that It was not using the human race as its personal buffet was better than nothing.

Its frown had returned. “We mated,” It said again with frustration. “Our very cores are connected – do you not understand?”

“I understand,” said Bill coolly. “I just don’t care. I told you I was going to kill you, and I will.”

“I told you: I can’t die,” It snarled, but it was the snarl of a cornered animal. “Give up! There’s no way for you to win!”

“I have no idea what the hell is going on,” whispered Ben. Beverly concurred with a, “Me neither.”

“For fucks sake,” moaned Richie. “He fucked the clown, alright? Get over it.”

That seemed to shock the Losers into silence. Bill was simultaneously grateful and horrified by his brazenness. He didn’t, however, look away from It, stalking ever closer with his hands fisted at his sides. It scrambled as far back as the wall accommodated, pressing flat against it, too weak to do much else.

“I’ll return,” It spat, hateful and adoring all at once, and Bill would never understand why. He was seconds away from ripping apart its mortal coil and he could still feel that yearning rolling off of it in cloying waves. “I’ll do it through you, Bill Denbrough. I will be back for you.”

“I’ll take my chances,” he said and charged forward, thrusting his fist against its chest – through it and into a withering mass that felt nothing like the core of a human, too cold and dripping with a viscid black liquid. It clung to the surface of his skin, turning tacky within moments of hitting the air. Bill plunged deeper still and was rewarded with a howl of pain.

It made no attempt to fight him off, Its shaking hands coming up to cradle his face. Its tenderness was incongruous with Bill’s ferocity. “I love you,” It whispered, so cruel in its warmth. Bill wanted to weep.

It stroked his face with such tenderness that Bill had to twist away from It before he continued, throwing it down against the stone to plunge a foot into its chest instead. He shattered its chest after stomping on it, turned it into a cavity of burst guts and torn muscle. Inky blackness puddled beneath its twitching, dying body. There was so much of it on Bill’s clothes that none of them would be salvageable.

He saw – felt – the weak thud of Its heart beneath the mass and dug for it, parting organs and weeping tissue, tearing further damage into its already ruined body. Its screams belted his eardrums. At last, he secured a fist around the beating organ, feeling it pulse and pump against his slimy fingers, and used a foot on Its shoulder to tear it free  

The beast bellowed and thrashed. The orange in its eyes was steadily dulling to a grey. It was dying. In a few more seconds, this would all be over, at long last.

But a few seconds was all It needed to secure Its teeth around his leg and snap cleanly through the muscle and bone, swallowing the limb whole, shoe and pantleg and all. Bill screamed, more out of shock than pain, and it collapsed to the floor, dead.

His shock was enough to make the whole ordeal surprisingly painless. He was not bleeding, he noted distantly. Somehow it had managed to cauterize the amputated limb. The flesh at the end of his stump was bumpy and red and Bill dropped to the floor in a heap, too overwhelmed by the sight to remain conscious.

His visioned dimmed around the edges. He saw Richie hunching over him, cradling him to his chest, tears streaming down his grime-smeared cheeks. A few of them landed on Bill’s forehead. Bill wished he could have said something to comfort him, but he was much too tired. He wanted to go to sleep now, just for a little while.


	8. Aftermaths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting close to the end, now! The epilogue will be coming soon!

The beep of a monitor was the first thing Bill became aware of. He let it guide him awake, shifting minutely and peeling open his eyes to look up at a cream ceiling. His first conscience inhalation brought with it a wave of nausea and momentary vertigo, and it was followed by the realization that his left leg was throbbing. Not painfully, but still uncomfortably. He stifled a whimper and closed his eyes again, listening to the beep of his heart monitor until the disorientation passed. The discomfort didn’t; that lingered, but he could deal with a little bit of discomfort.

When he glanced around the room, the first thing he noticed was Richie draped over his bed railing, his face tucked into the crook of an elbow. He was humming, so he couldn’t be asleep; was _trying_ to sleep, probably.

Bill reached over to card his fingers through Richie’s dishevelled curls. They were lovely and soft. Richie moved to look up at him.

“Bill,” he whispered, audible relief in his voice. “About time you woke up.”

Bill offered a weak smile. “How’s your shoulder?” he asked hoarsely, nodding to Richie’s bandaged chest. There were pinpricks of blood on the surface of the gauze.

“They had to give me like, a hundred stitches,” Richie mumbled back. He leaned into the hand drifting through his hair. “And a _ton_ of painkillers, so there’s an upside.”

“No permanent damage?”

“A little bit of nerve, but that’s okay. I can live with that.” A warm relief expanded in Bill’s chest.

“Is e-everyone else okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Richie. “We told the staff we were in a car crash. You should’ve seen their faces when we said we took a cab here. Heh.”

Bill smile turned sloppy. Whatever painkillers he’d been given, they were cloaking the grief and anxiety that should have been present. He was surprisingly tranquil for someone who had just fought an alien clown and lost a leg as a consequence. “What excuse did you come up with f-for me?”

Richie gave a nervous lick of his lips. Bill could tell it was nervous, because that was about the only time Richie wetted his lips. “Do you remember what happened before you fell unconscious?”

“Yeah.” He’d killed It. He remembered that. He remembered a searing pain around his leg and then everything dissolved into hazy snapshots of panic. There had been moisture on his face. Had he cried? He couldn’t quite recall.

Richie visibly hesitated. “So, you… you know you’re missing half your leg?”

“Yeah.” He could see the dip in the blanket where his left calf should have been.

Worry lines grew on Richie’s brow. “You’re taking this better than I expected.”

Bill curled up on his side, drawing Richie close enough to use his shoulder as a headrest. “You could tell me my unborn son died and I’d probably take it well. I don’t know what they’re giving me, but it’s great. I’m a little nauseous, but I can’t feel any pain at all.”

“Oh.” Richie tittered. He gave something under the bed a pull and the railing separating them collapsed, enabling Bill to make himself comfortable on Richie’s chest. An arm came up under his torso to steady him.

“I could have lost a lot more,” Bill murmured. “All of you are a-alive… I would have given up a thousand limbs for that.”

“You don’t have a thousand limbs.”

“I know.” He laughed quietly, hoarsely. His throat was very dry. How long had he been unconscious? A day? Two? “I guess I’m j-just prone to hyperbole while drugged up to my eyeballs.”

Richie buried his face into Bill’s messy auburn hair. “You’ll get a cool bionic leg, anyway. You can afford one of the really good ones.”

“I’ll look awesome,” he agreed, and giggled when Richie lowered his head even further to press a kiss to the edge of his mouth, cradling him close.

“Jesus,” said Richie, laughing against Bill’s parted lips. “They should put you on drugs more often. You’re fucking adorable.” He pressed a few more kisses to Bill’s lips, chin, and cheek before burying his nose back into Bill’s hair, inhaling deep. Bill couldn’t imagine he smelt very good after their journey through the sewer, but Richie didn’t seem to mind. “The others are gonna want to know you’re okay, but we can spare a few more minutes. They’re still waiting for Eds to get out of surgery, anyway.”

If Eddie had yet to get out of surgery, Bill couldn’t have been unconscious for as long as he had been anticipating. “How long was I out?” he asked.

“Couple of hours,” answered Richie. “They would’ve gotten to Eds sooner, but an earthquake hit the town as we were leaving the sewer, so there’s a shit-ton of people in the emergency room.” He paused. “I think It was kind of… holding this place together.”

“Yeah,” said Bill, his voice quiet and pensive. He remembered the poisonous arithmetic beat of Its heart – of _Derry’s_ heart – in his palm and shuddered. He didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to remember. He wanted to forget It just like he had as a child, forget everything that had occurred, all the pain and misery and humiliation, but the memory rose up so vivid in his mind that it was almost like he was experiencing it all over again.

Richie stroked soothing patterns into his back and shoulders. “Hey, don’t look like that! No one died, not even the residents here.”

“It’s n-not that,” said Bill. He gave his head a shake to banish the echo of Its influence. “Do you t-think we’ll f-forget again, like last time?”

“Do you want to?”

“K-kind of.” There were certain things he wanted to remember, and all of them had to do with the Losers.

(Most of all, he didn’t want to remember that it had _hurt him_ to perform the killing blow.)

“I don’t want to forget you,” he mumbled, tugging Richie closer until the man was forced to join him in the hospital cot. “Or what you did for me.”

“You did way more for me than I did for you,” murmured Richie as he stretched his long legs out beside Bill’s. Their ankles became tangled. “Saved my fucking life. Now we have to get married.”

“W-what?” Bill blinked in shock.

“I mean, it’s legal now,” said Richie with a nonchalant shrug. “I should probably propose later, though. You’re ‘drugged up to your eyeballs’, after all.”

“Jesus, Richie, that’s really fucking forward,” said Bill, laughing airily. “Let’s give that a t-tentative yes for now.”

“Aw.” Richie planted another kiss on his lips. “You love me.”

“Yeah, I _really_ do.”

They lay together for some time, marvelling at each other, at the fact they were alive and safe and _together_ , and only vacated the bed when a nurse told them that Edward Kaspbrak’s surgery was over and he was available for visitors. Before leaving, she gave Bill another dose of painkiller to get him through the next few hours.

Bill started to heave himself out of bed.

“Oh, er...” Richie held him by the waist so he wouldn’t go toppling over the edge of the bed. “I’m guessing you wanna come, then?” asked Richie.

“Of c-course I do!”

“But your leg.”

“It’s fine,” he said, which was a strangely flippant way to address the absence of one’s leg. “If I wasn’t fit to leave the room, the nurse would have said so.”

“She didn’t say you _should_ , either,” said Richie, but he was already retrieving a wheelchair from the corner of the room.

Richie heaved Bill into the wheelchair and covered his missing limb with his blanket, then wheeled him out into the hall. Bill absentmindedly raked his hands over the space his calf should have been. The sensation of cloth rubbing against skin was still present despite the complete absence of anything below his knee.

They saw Beverly coming up the steps as they approached the elevator.

“Oh!” She grinned when she saw them, raising a heavily bandaged arm in greeting. She’d probably needed stitches, too. “I was just about to get you two!”

“The n-nurse came,” said Bill. “Is Eddie okay?”

“A little out of it, but the doc said his arm should heal fine.”

“And e-everyone else?” In his disorientation, he couldn’t remember exactly how badly everyone had been injured. He needed reassurance. “Richie said they were all fine, but-”

“Richie was telling the truth,” interrupted Beverly. She reached over to tousle Bill’s already terribly messy and matted hair. “We’re all fine. Mike’s going to have to walk with crutches for a while, but Henry didn’t nick an artery or anything.”

“H-Henry,” Bill suddenly cried. Before he could continue, Beverly resumed speaking.

“Don’t worry about him. We gave him over to the police.”

“He was a little bitch about it,” muttered Richie. “Kept on crying out for his friends, too. Made me feel a little sorry for him, honestly.” Richie started to guide the wheelchair forward. “But he tried to bite me, so that was short-lived.”

“We told them that he caused the crash by running in front of us,” said Beverly, shrugging and walking at their side. She stepped into the elevator after them.

“G-glad I wasn’t awake. I n-never would have been able to think up a convincing lie on the fly.”

“I was distracted by you,” said Richie. “I probably would have said it was a croquet accident.”

“Well, I’m glad neither of you were around to offer input, then,” said Beverly wryly. She pressed the ground floor button. “Anyway, Bill – are you feeling alright? I mean, obviously you’re not, but do you think you can eat? We’re about to have a _very_ late dinner in the hospital cafeteria.” She shrugged. “It’s about five thirty in the morning, but the kitchen staff are already here, and they said they’ll make some sandwiches for us.”

“That’s k-kind of them,” said Bill, though he wasn’t really hungry. He might’ve been, sans the painkiller, but he couldn’t feel much of anything outside of a faint throbbing while it was active. He probably should at least try to eat, though. He hadn’t had a big dinner. His appetite had been non-existent due to stress and it had been well over ten hours since that modest meal. “I’ll have a chicken sandwich,” he announced.

“Same,” said Richie.

The elevator dinged and the doors parted, unveiling an active lobby. There were people occupying almost every available seat, some cradling arms and others stifling bloody wounds with their clothes. As they rolled past, most injuries Bill could see were minor and superficial in nature. A few broken bones and some cuts that oozed blood, but nothing that wouldn’t heal within time. Its last thrashing of Derry appeared to have claimed no further lives or livelihoods. Bill was relieved.

They rolled through the lobby and into a quiet cafeteria, in which only one table was occupied. Mike, Ben, and Eddie turned to them with broad smiles as they approached. Eddie looked to be very drowsy, his head lulling forward as he stuffed an egg salad sandwich between his pliant lips. The hospital staff had been kind enough to provide them with a whole platter of sandwiches instead of individual sandwiches. They’d even cut them into bite-sized triangles. Bill always liked it when people did that.

Richie rolled him over to the edge of the table and sat down at Bill’s side, arm hanging over Bill’s armrest, draped over his wrist. Beverly took a seat next to Richie and nudged the platter closer to Bill, who absentmindedly threaded his fingers with Richie’s and selected a chicken sandwich for himself.

“How’s the painkillers?” asked Mike, eyebrow arched.

Bill laughed. “A little less effective than whatever they’re giving Eddie, I think.”

“What’d you mean by that?” asked Eddie, scowling playfully. “I’m perfectly functional.”

“There’s e-egg on your shirt.”

“Oh!” Eddie grabbed himself a napkin with his good arm and wiped a glob of egg and mayonnaise off his shirt. “Okay, point made.”

“That casts looking a lil’ bare, Eddie,” interjected Ben. Bill tried to get a look at said cast, but he couldn’t see it from where he was seated.

“We never did get to sign it as kids, did we?” said Beverly. “Hang on,” she added, leaping back out of her chair. “Reception should have a marker we can borrow.”

“Oh, you guys don’t have to do that.” Eddie was blushing. “That’s kid stuff.”

“You’re never too old to have your cast signed!” said Richie.

“Besides,” said Ben. “It’ll be something to remember us by.”

When Beverly returned with two markers – one black and one blue – they each took turns signing it, scrawling their name and perhaps a doodle of a figure or face. When Bill’s turn arrived, he wrote ‘lover’ on it in big, capital letters, and Eddie grinned at him in gratitude.

“Your name, too,” whispered Eddie, leaning across the table toward him. “I don’t want to forget you either, Big Bill.” Bill was more than happy to oblige the request, writing his name in bold letters beneath the scrawl of ‘lover’ so it would be clearly visible.

As they finished breakfast and talked and languished in the aftermaths of their success, all that had occurred over the past week drifted to the recesses of their minds. The terror of It was finally over, and no one wanted to think about anything but the promise of a brighter future.

* * *

_It drifted languidly through the cold dark of the macroverse, as it often had prior to creating a physical form with which to traverse Its personal feeding troth. It had become so accustomed to the sensations afforded by the human realm that it was odd, and perhaps even a little bit painful – in the mental regard – to have that sensory faculty severed so violently. It could still perceive touch in the macroverse, but it wasn’t like the sensations It had experienced on earth. Any physical body It manifested here felt an all-encompassing cold and little else. After a time, even the leg he’d brought into the macroverse with him turned cold and clammy in Its grip._

_It held that leg close, refusing to release it. It could discern the slightest connection to the writer if It focused hard enough, like a red string tying the limb to its owner. Their own connection, the one forged through the mating process, had been dulled; it’d been dull before Bill had killed It, but it was as thin as a hair strand now. What mattered, however, was that it was still present, still perceptible, and strengthened by Bill’s matter subsisting in the macroverse._

_They were still One and would always be One._

_It knew if It could feel the connection, Its Little Buddy would feel it too, and It knew his Little Buddy would never cease to feel It until the connection compelled them back together. He would awaken shaking and gasping and sweating in the night, a hollow expanding across some untapped area of his mind, wanting desperately for It to fill the emptiness that their forced division had left. He would feel a crescendo of longing for It, and he would feel Its hands ghosting over the absence of his leg, and know It was waiting for him._

_In time, It would get what It wanted. It always did. Until then, this small part of Bill would always be with It._

* * *

Over the week following Its death, the Losers prepared to depart Derry for the last time. They had lives to get back to, wives to look after, work to do. Two weeks off work was stretching their schedules as it was.

Eddie was first to leave, giving them all a lingering hug before stepping into a taxi. Beverly followed shortly after, leaving them with a kiss on the cheek to remember her by. Ben accompanied her, but not before squeezing them in his beefy arms and offering them the address of his holiday lodge. Mike returned to working at the library after a handshake and an enduring hug that ended in tears.

That left him and Richie.

Bill was fitted for a temporary prosthetic the day before they left Derry. When the hospital had offered physical therapy, he had refused; he would get that elsewhere, somewhere far away from this place and the memories it held. Now standing on two feet, albeit with Richie holding him by either hip, they caught a taxi to the airport and prepared to catch the redeye flight to New York.

“You’ll like my place,” said Richie, helping him sit down in the airport lounge. What little walking Bill had done had been awkward and slow. It’d taken them twice as long to get through customs as everyone else, but Richie didn’t seem to mind. “I actually buy used signs and use them to decorate the place,” he continued with growing enthusiasm. “A few of them have bulbs and neon lights! I even have a few arcade machines in my lounge room.”

Bill chuckled and lowered his head to Richie’s shoulder. Richie cradled it there with a hand. “You haven’t changed a bit since we were kids.”

“You love it,” Richie teased.

Bill closed his eyes. The sounds and smells of the airport were comforting. The process of travelling by plane had always given Bill a sense of moving forward, no matter where his destination happened to be. “I’ll h-have to have all my stuff transported from England.”

“Do you have any pets?”

“No.” Though he had considered getting some turtles. Maybe he would now that he had someone else around to make sure they got fed.

“Easy done, then,” said Richie, pressing a lazy kiss to Bill’s scalp. “I still can’t believe I came here to kill an evil clown and got a _boyfriend_ out of it.”

“Me neither,” said Bill, laughing, and he was truly glad that he had come to Derry.


	9. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! Thank you to everyone who read and enjoyed this fic. I appreciate all the feedback/kudos I've received and interacting with everyone has made this fic an absolute joy to write. I could not have asked for a better audience. <3

In New York with Richie, Bill lived a privileged life. His life prior to getting engaged to Richie hadn’t been impoverished by any stretch of the imagination, but with their combined incomes, he and Richie were regularly able to indulge in the sort of frivolities Bill hadn’t been able to afford as a bachelor. 

The first year they spent together, they went on a trip around Australia in a Winnebago, just like Richie had promised they would. Altogether the trip took six months. They were some of the most exhilarating days of Bill’s life. They swam in the Great Barrier Reef, climbed Uluru, saw Sydney Harbour Bridge on New Year’s Eve and caught a show in the Sydney Opera House, and drove up the Great Ocean Road. Those were memories Bill would treasure for the rest of his life.

When they returned to America, Richie started up a new season of his show and Bill began his next novel, this one being as much a romance as it was a horror. He was in _that_ kind of mood.

While It steadily faded from all but Bill’s mind, the Losers never forgot their friendship, nor that a momentous event had brought them together. When they managed to get time off from work, everyone gathered in New York for a luncheon or activity. It was only a couple of times a year, usually on holidays, but that was better than not seeing each other at all. They managed the occasional skype call, though Mike had trouble figuring out how to set up his external camera and microphone and would join their group sessions late, and Eddie often didn’t have much to say. At the end of the day, however, they all made an effort to stay in contact, and Bill couldn’t have been happier.

Bill and Richie got married two years after their engagement. They would have liked to get married sooner, but they both led busy lives and simply hadn’t found the time to arrange a wedding. Their union was a small, modest event hosted in an arcade (Richie’s decision, obviously), with just over fifty guests. Bill’s parents didn’t attend, but that was okay; Richie’s parents were warm and loving enough to make up for their absence. They slid gold rings onto each other’s fingers, exchanged a passionate kiss, then spent the remainder of the night drinking, playing games, and eating through the buffet. On the whole, it was a wonderful and memorable wedding that had been far nicer than anything traditional.

Ben and Beverly got married as well, eventually, and inspired by the joyous night Bill and Richie had offered them on their wedding day, they held theirs at a laser tag park. Beverly ended up winning two games in a row, but was eventually usurped by Eddie.

Over the next ten years, he and Richie went on regular holidays across the globe. They visited the tombs in Egypt, backpacked across Europe, went on a tour of South Asia, spent a month in Japan, tasted the wine and food of Italy, went on four cruises, and saw so many attractions that the drawer in which they kept their photos and trinkets was overflowing by the end of the decade. They ended up pinning everything to the walls so they would have room for memorabilia of future trips.

However, after being together for twelve years, something became apparent.

Bill wasn’t aging.

He hadn’t so much as an additional line on his face. If not for the shorter hair, he would have looked exactly the same as he had all those years ago in Derry. At first, Bill had thought it a consequence of good genes; his parents always had looked young for their age, but after twelve years there should have been _some_ sign of wear on his body. He would regularly stand in front of a mirror and examine every inch of himself, searching for some sign of age, something to reassure himself that he was getting older, just like Richie was, but he never found anything.

“It’s okay,” Richie would tell Bill whenever he voiced his concern. They’d had long, passionate, and often turbulent discussions on the topic of Bill’s unwavering youth, and Richie had concluded that nothing could be done. He accepted Bill for who and what he was. For as long as he lived, he would never leave Bill, no matter what.

But Bill knew this wasn’t okay. He knew why this was happening. Every time he thought about it, about IT, he would hear a sound like fingernails scratching at the back of his skull, as though there was a beast in his head trying to tunnel out.

(Sometimes he was afraid that there was.)

The sound had only worsened as the years had progressed. In the beginning, it had been more of a hiss than a scrape, insistent but not difficult to ignore while focused on other things. It was impossible to ignore for more than a few minutes at a time, now.

The worst part was not the scratching itself, however, but how _alluring_ Bill found it. There was something inside him that wanted for It, hungry and infatuated and growing even more so over time. He would wake up sweaty and panting in the night, sweltering hot in his desire for It, and that terrified him.

He watched the world change while he remained the same. He purchased a new, up-to-date bionic leg every other year and occasionally grew out his hair, trying to mask his lack of aging, but he only ever managed superficial changes. After a while, he had to start wearing makeup to make himself appear older before he went outside. He’d even bleached his hair white, and continued to bleach it until Richie died of a heart attack at seventy.

The funeral was an enormous event. The country had been in love with their quick-witted Richie Tozier, who always had something reassuring, witty, or uplifting to say on current events, no matter how bleak they were. Bill did his makeup and bleached his hair one last time, then gave a speech before an audience of hundreds. He’d arranged for a closed casket funeral because he’d known Richie wouldn’t want his loved ones to see what had come of his body in death.

The Losers sat with him late into the evening on the day of the funeral. He cried and cried and cried until there was nothing left in his ducts to expel, then curled into a little ball and shook in Beverly’s arms.

After that night, he acknowledged that all his loved ones would die one day and forced himself to accept it. By accepting it, he would at least be able to prepare himself emotionally. There was nothing else he could do.

Bill faked his death shortly after Richie’s passing. The tabloids referred to it as a ‘death brought on by grief’. They’d said he died, quiet literally, of a broken heart, and it was somewhat warming to know that would be written in the history books.

He spent some time pretending to be the child of Ben and Beverly, before they too died of old age. One after the other, the Losers were dropping like flies, few making it beyond the age of eighty. He always made sure they were buried next to each other in Derry’s graveyard. It felt right to bury them there, where all their stories had begun. They would always be together.

When he was finally alone, the calling from It grew in volume. It raced down his spine and into his limbs, tingled at his fingertips; it clutched at his lungs and squeezed the air out of them; it buried deep into his missing limb and stroked and caressed the absent flesh. It permeated every inch of Bill’s being until all of him was endlessly, incessantly buzzing.

It knew the Losers were gone, knew it was over, and it wanted Bill back.

Bill isolated himself from the world. He spent his days in his old childhood home and only ventured out to visit the Losers graves. He thought, briefly, about killing himself so he could be buried next to his friends, but those thoughts were quickly banished by the ever-present buzzing that rocked through his body. Even if he could maintain the thought long enough to try, would it work? Or would he persist no matter what he did to his body? Bill didn’t particularly want to find out. 

He didn’t leave Derry. He didn’t want to. He knew his proximity to It only made it stronger, but he didn’t have the will to leave. In some ways, the foreign presence in his body was all he had left of his former life. He could visit his friends’ graves, but that didn’t make them any less dead, and he knew wherever they were, now, that he would never be there with them. Part of him didn’t even want to be.

He had been sullied. He didn’t belong in heaven.

The weather was always cold in Derry, these days. Climate change or something like that. Australia was experiencing the longest heatwave in recorded history, and America was experiencing a similarly lengthy winter. When Bill bought flowers, and set them upon his friends’ graves, they were usually frostbitten by the evening. He’d often have to sit them on snow.

He’d bought them roses, this time. Red and white ones. He set great banquets of them upon the graves of his friends and sat down in the frosted grass to enjoy the quiet of the evening. Very few people came out to visit the graves in this weather.

He spent most of his time sitting before Richie’s grave. By now the man must have deteriorated away, little more than dust and bone, but he liked to think that Richie could feel his presence in whatever wonderful place he was now. Maybe he could see Bill, could hear him. Maybe he knew how much Bill still loved him, even after all this time.

“I love you.” He brushed snow off the surface of Richie’s headstone, leaning forward to place his lips upon the chilled marble. “I love you,” he said again, full of reverence for a man who had long since left him. He fished a handful of faded photographs from his coat pocket and placed them in the snow. They were snapshots from their time in Australia: Richie diving into the Great Barrier Reef with llamas on his swimming shorts; Bill horrendously sunburned while a giggling Richie rubbed lotion into his shoulders; a selfie on the very top of Uluru; sitting together on a beach with the sun hovering behind Richie’s head like a halo.

Bill looked up at the sky. The sun was descending behind the towering buildings of Derry, casting the city in shadow. He brushed dirt off his trousers and tucked his coat lapels together, exhaling a steady stream of mist as he strode out the graveyard. He shivered on his way down the street and felt very old and weary despite his youthful appearance. He had been alive for a very long time. Too long.

The cool winter air turned his cheeks a perky pink. He rubbed his nose, sniffing, and turned around a nearby corner to escape the howling winds. The collar of his jacket did little to protect his neck from the chill. He rubbed at it with his gloved hands, his teeth chattering.

It was no coincidence that his walking eventually brought him to Neibolt house. He often stood in front of it and considered its debilitated front door. He would think about entering it, when the calling was strongest… but he always refrained. He hadn’t been ready for what waited inside. 

For the first time since arriving back in Derry, Bill ascended the steps and entered, pushing open the door with a loud creak. The place hadn’t changed at all from when he’d last seen it. It was still dusty, dirty, and covered in spiderwebs, the floorboards creaking as Bill crept through the aging hallways. The dust dissipated when he reached the basement.  

The rope they’d used to drop into the sewer was still hanging on a hook over the well. Bill used it to climb down and began to slosh his way through the odious water. His trousers and coat were soaked within minutes. A terrible chill crept into his bones and still he ventured forth, shivering and breathing in harsh, burdened pants. The cold air seared the insides of his lungs.

The room they had found Beverly in as children was empty and dark. Bill lowered himself to the ground and sat with his back to the stone, knees curled to his chest, and closed his eyes. The room turned colder still, and something like a breath whispered over Bill’s pale lips. It filled him with a sense of comfort and belonging.

“I’m ready,” he whispered to It.

A face buried itself in his hair and whispered, “Welcome back,” and Bill opened his eyes to orange. Endless, wonderful, dazzling orange that was somehow simultaneously freezing cold and scorching hot. A grinning mouth latched onto his and he kissed back with passion.

He sunk, slowly, into Its arms, into the darkness, and it felt like going home.


End file.
